Lehavot
by mon-petit-pois
Summary: "Flashes of a long summer full of take out dinners, sweaty skin, and soft, crumpled bed sheets flickered before her eyes, and she would have cherished them if she had known that, in a few weeks, she would not have been able to remember any of it. But this was different. He was different." (Somalia AU, T/Z)
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: First and foremost, I wrote this story for the birthday of a great friend of mine. Hannah (mszivadavid), I hope you have a fantastic year! You've got so much to look forward to. Enjoy your belated present!_

_This story has been my baby for the past three months. It's completely consumed me. This is the very first time I've ever written something completely before posting it, and I've learned so much from writing it. It was originally supposed to be no more than a lengthy oneshot, or two shot perhaps, but it's since grown into a nearly 100k monster that I've had to split into nine parts. My profuse apologies for all those eagerly waiting new chapters of All Fall Down and The Crossroads. I will be publishing new chapters as soon as possible. I never intended this little side project to be so all-consuming._

_I owe this story—and possibly my sanity—to Nicole (mcgeekle) and Jessica. They've put up with so much crap in the past three months. I talked about this story constantly. They were always there to give me feedback, Nicole more on the writing end and Jessica more on the ideas end. It wouldn't exist without you guys. Also, in the past few weeks Tatiana (born30) has been a mentor of sorts, helping me through the really sticky part of wrapping this story up. Thank you so much, all of you, from the very bottom of my heart._

_I hope you enjoy this story! I'm so excited to hear feedback! It's going to be quite a ride. _

. . .

**Part I**

. . .

She was captured on a Saturday.

All across the world, knees bent reverently in prayer, but hers throbbed as she was shoved violently to a kneel by the man with a gun to her temple. Ziva had never been a religious woman—and perhaps that was why she was here. Perhaps her hands were tied behind her back because she had failed so many times to extend them for blessing. A dry, desert wind blew through the compound and on it she could almost smell Aunt Nettie's baking challah mixed with the pungent odors of spent gunpowder and sweat.

With rough hands they pushed her down a dusty, dim-lit corridor, past the heavy wooden door, and into a large, locked room. There was something familiar about the lonely, straight-backed chair sitting in the center like an altar; about the table pushed against the wall that stood at the ready to hold any sort of instrument her captors desired. There was not much she was certain of anymore, but as they slammed her into the chair so hard her teeth rattled she knew that this would be her very last Shabbat.

The golden pendant seared her neck, and somehow it bothered her more than the fists bruising and battering and bursting her skin ever could.

. . .

They beat her to a bloody pulp, of course. She had expected nothing less. When they finally finished, her left eye was swollen shut, an unseeing mess of purple and oozing red. The door slammed shut with a resounding _thud _and she cringed, grimacing in pain as she spat strings of blood onto the dirt floor. Anger built and a snarl erupted from somewhere deep within her. Once again she tested the plastic ties that had already left her wrists red and raw but to no avail.

All as she had expected.

But then there came a crescendo of footsteps from the hallway, and in entered a man she knew from the dossier to be Saleem Ulman, striding forward with a power-drunken gait. He got closer, closer, until she could smell the cigarette smoke that clung to his keffiyeh and lingered on his hot breath. Something sharp stung the back of her neck, and only when she saw the glint of gold in his palm did she realize what had happened. He clenched the token in his fist and with the other hand tightened his grip on her hair as a grimace appeared on his face.

His filthy fingers knotted with the hair at the back of her head and yanked, tearing a shocked gasp from her lungs, through her gritted teeth. He pulled her head back and brought her face inches from his, and with her one good eye she could see up close and personal the malice swimming in his. She tried to swallow, but her throat was pulled taut.

"Tell me everything you know about NCIS."

And that, she had not been expecting.

. . .

Saleem was a talented interrogator, she would give him that, but she was better. She had been on that side of the knife enough times to know all the tricks in the book. She was good at torture, on both ends. The questions, the intimidation, the radiating pain and promises of a quick death—they were familiar. She was a veteran torturer and a veteran torturee.

Eventually, her captor got frustrated and left, and she took what pride she could from that. He was beginning to understand that she would not be easy to break, and she distantly wondered what he would return with, what horror he would inflict on her body next. She hoped it killed her.

Because, as she had once told a young American probationary agent, everybody breaks eventually, and she refused to live to see that happen to her.

. . .

Saleem Ulman was more a fan of psychological torture, she decided as he slipped a silver needle into the crook of her arm. A clear liquid slid into her body, leaving a trail of fire in its wake as it seeped into her bloodstream. _Sodium pentothol,_ she heard him say. Truth serum.

But all these years with Mossad had made lies and secrets her specialty, so even as her tongue was loosened and her vision swam she revealed nothing useful. She spoke of things like berry mango madness smoothies, of rain drumming on rooftops and dreadful pumpkin-orange walls, of dysfunctional teammates that felt more like family than colleagues.

She spoke of the things that made NCIS important to her, and not what made it important to him.

He hit her so hard that the chair toppled, and she landed on her shoulder with a _crack_. From her one good eye she could see her broken necklace lying in the dirt a few feet away, desert insects crawling along the grimy golden chain. Saleem kicked her in the stomach, grabbed the empty syringe, and left, slamming the door behind him.

. . .

He revealed many things to her in the days that followed. One fact stuck out in her mind like a sore thumb—he had graduated from Yale with a Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry. This made all too much sense, as every now and then he would bring a syringe filled with a nasty liquid to the torture sessions. Slowly she began to fear that the most, for she soon realized that even he was not sure what he was pumping into her body. Each time she hoped the concoction would be lethal, but most of all that it would be quick.

The affects varied greatly. It started with the truth serum and morphed into things much darker. The second time he shot her up, it made her heart speed up so much that she thought it would give out altogether. It beat like a helicopter in her chest and she was sure she would die.

But to her chagrin it wore off and Saleem stormed off to try again, to formulate the perfect cocktail of chemicals to break someone with nothing left to lose.

Sometimes it caused unbearable pain, more pain than could ever have been achieved with a knife or car battery or bullwhip. It was as if she had been doused in gasoline and set ablaze. Later, she would remember vaguely a time when she was young and the neighbor boy had been bitten by a snake in their backyard. _It was like fire,_ he had told her, and she wondered then if Saleem had not added venom to the contents of the syringe.

But ultimately, that one failed as well, as she was in far too much agony to formulate a complete thought, let alone divulge important secrets.

She thought idly that he reminded her of one of the mad scientists from the movies. And consequently, she was the poor caged animal on which he tested each and every terrible creation. She wondered if he would ever stop, even if she gave him what he was looking for.

Each night the sun would sink below the horizon, and the nighttime would be ushered in with a cool breeze, the pale glow of moonlight, and the sound of skittering insects along the far wall. She would shiver, and though she was never the praying type, she would pray then that tomorrow would be the day that he overfilled the syringe. At this point she did not care if it was a painful, she just cared that one way or another, she would close her eyes and never open them again.

. . .

She numbered the days in the cigarettes he put out on her forearm. Counting the welts calmed her in a morbid way. _One, two, three._ Exhale through the pain. _Four, five, six, seven._ The room lingered with the phantom stench of burning flesh and hair. Eventually, the numbers reached double digits, and she wondered idly how it had been so long. She tried to avoid thinking of how much longer it might be.

After a few weeks he ran out of room on that arm and moved to the next. It was on cigarette number five of arm number two, put out on the crook of her elbow, that he discovered the perfect concoction.

It was the ideal combination of pain, hallucinations, and most importantly, fear. Under its influence she would come to witness her worst nightmares acted out before her in real time. First it was the scorpions.

She had always been afraid of them, a side effect of growing up in the desert and finding one too many between her bed sheets. That day there were thousands, crawling in first under the door and then through the cracks in the concrete walls. Her heart beat wildly in her chest and she tugged on her restraints, but it only served to reopen the cuts on her wrists. Behind her she heard her torturer laugh.

The scorpions advanced slowly, a tidal wave legs and stingers and pincers. They coated the floor in a hissing blanket of pale yellow, surrounding her chair where she sat helpless.

_It is not real,_ she tried to tell herself, grinding her teeth and looking up to the ceiling and the blinding light bulb that hung from it. The light spun and blurred and her head lolled to the side.

She felt something touch her bare heel and she wanted to scream.

But she didn't want to give him that satisfaction, so she disguised it in a gasping whimper. Her lips quavered as she felt them crawling and tried to grit her teeth and bear it, even as it felt like she was being burnt alive.

It was just another form of torture, she knew, in reality no more painful than a knife or club or cattle prod, and yet it shook her to the core in a way none of those things could. The terror as she felt the scorpions crawling and stinging all over her body seeped into her very bones and made her oh-so-very desperate. The venom coursed through her veins and she writhed against her bonds. They were everywhere, _everywhere,_ under her clothes, on her scalp, the back of her neck, the crook of her knee. She dry heaved, her empty stomach convulsing. She thought she heard someone screaming.

Through the pain she managed to crack an eye open, and almost wished she hadn't. Past the sea of ugly crawling bodies were the two people in the world that could hurt her more than the venom ever could.

"_Tony…"_ she half cried, half moaned. He looked on, impassive. "_Gibbs?"_ she begged, desperate now. "_Please…"_ A scorpion crawled up her chest and to the side of her neck. It stung, and she whimpered. "_Please help me."_

And they just stood there, staring right through her, so she tried again.

"_You cannot be here, you must run—Saleem, he will—"_

And from behind her came two deafening _bangs_, as one after the other a pair of bullets whizzed by her ear and lodged themselves in the foreheads of those two men. They fell like dominoes, their bodies sinking and disappearing into the vast ocean of poisonous, crawling yellow bodies. Jerking in the chair, she tried to spin her head around to the source of the deadly shots. But Saleem was not there, no one was.

"_No, no, no…_" she whispered, the fear growing like the swarm of scorpions still pouring into to the room. The walls were spinning, her vision blurring, the pain radiating from every square centimeter of her body. She screamed herself hoarse. She was not sure what she said, but she was sure that she begged.

It was hours before the reprieve came. The toxins wore off slowly, and when the last scorpion finally disappeared she was left a shaking, tear-streaked mess. From the hallway she could hear retreating footsteps.

The pain wore off with the drugs, but the fear stayed.

. . .

He returned the next day, saying nothing as he pulled the syringe from the case. Nonchalantly he ground the butt of his lit cigarette into the flesh of her forearm; she gritted her teeth but otherwise remained as calm as he seemed to be.

Then came the pinprick and a familiar rush of heat. With a start she realized it was the same as the day before, and in her chest her heart skipped a beat. She swallowed the phantom pain and tried to brace herself.

It was not scorpions but fire this time. And while being stung thousands of times with their venom certainly seemed like being burnt alive, she knew from the moment the first flame licked her leg that this could undoubtedly be much worse.

The flames started in the far corner, leaping and hissing and latching onto anything and everything. They spread in minutes, encompassing the whole room in the threatening orange glow. The fear was back, and her heart and breathing sped up side by side as the flames soaked up all the oxygen in the room—perhaps she would suffocate before the fire ever touched her.

But such mercies were unfit for a sinner like her, so she burned.

"_Ziva!"_ The word was little more than a scream, that of a child. She opened her eyes and through the inferno she could make out the silhouette of a young girl. She did not have to see her face to know who it was.

"_Tali!_" she shouted, but her voice was swallowed in the roar of the fire. Horror filled her chest—she knew what this was. Around her she could see the smoldering outlines of café tables.

Is this what her baby sister felt in her last moments—terror and desperation and oh-so-unbearable pain as her skin melted from her bones? "_Tali…"_

And then through the fire there was Tony, as good as new without a hole in his head. Hope blossomed amidst the fear.

"_Tony!"_ she screamed, "_Save her, please, save Tali!"_ But he simply took a few steps back and disappeared behind the wall of flames. She could still hear her little sister crying out, but there was nothing she could do. She hung her head and shook with fear and desperation.

A single tear sizzled and evaporated from her cheek.

. . .

She grew to like the nights, because when the sun went down that meant solitude. Being alone with her own thoughts was torture in itself, but at least she felt like _herself._ There were no drugs coursing through her veins, and while the fear never truly left—she was terrified each moment that scorpions were going to pour in from under the doorway, or a fire would spark in the corner, or god forbid some other unspeakable horror—it was better than what happened during the days.

Saleem returned on the third day with the same formula. Instead of the usual silence, however, he began to whisper to her as he slipped the needle into her arm.

"They have abandoned you, you know." His voice reminded her of a snake. "It has been almost a month, Ziva." His words, the sound of her name on his sharp lips, sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. "Tony and Gibbs aren't coming for you."

Her nose flared and mouth twitched, but did not dignify him with an answer. She must have let their names slip in the last few days.

"After all, why would they? You are _nothing_, Ziva."

She looked away, jaw set.

"You're just a little girl," he mused, a filthy finger slithering down the side of her face, across her cheekbone, resting on her cracked and bleeding lips. She resisted the juvenile urge to bite him. "You are, what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Such youth, such beauty…" His finger trailed down her chin to the spot where her Star of David used to rest. "_Wasted._ They threw you away, Little Ziva. They're the reason you are here, with me. Tony and Gibbs are the reason for this pain." He punctuated the last word by roughly yanking the syringe from her arm. She exhaled sharply and clenched her teeth as the heat radiated slowly from her forearm. The world began to spin, her head slumping to the side, unbalanced. Even as the world tilted she could see the reptilian smirk tugging on Saleem's lips. He circled behind her, a basic interrogation tactic to make her feel surrounded. She sneered and tried to keep her breathing even as she stared blankly at the door.

And then his footsteps disappeared. She flexed her aching fingers, trying to keep her mind from the terror the heat was fostering in her. She could feel the fear everywhere, from her chest to her stomach to her throbbing head and withering feet. Behind her, she heard a hiss.

_It's not real,_ she insisted, not knowing or caring if she said the words out loud. But reality and hallucination had long ago blended together—here, it didn't matter what was truly real, because while the brown viper slithering into view was likely not, the absolute terror spreading through her body _was._

She shivered a gasp as the snake turned its ugly head toward her, its yellow eyes threatening slits. It was long and thick, decorated with brown spots. She had encountered one like this when she was a child playing in her aunt's orange grove; she'd never been so scared in her life.

It opened its mouth to hiss at her, its long, sharp fangs bared, and she trembled, imagining them dripping in poison. They were bigger than she remembered, _it _was bigger than she remembered. Before, she'd been young and nimble and had simply run away. But there was no running for Ziva anymore. She'd run for far too long from far too many things, and bonds at her wrists and ankles were just as strong as ever. She exhaled shakily.

The viper slithered across the dirt floor, circling her with a terrible, sly elegance. Its radius shortened with each pass in front of her, and every now and then she felt its tail brush against the bare skin of her feet. She jerked, screwing her eyes shut and looking toward the spinning ceiling. Her breath came out in short, distressed pants as the giant snake continued to encircle the chair. It seemed to be getting longer, louder, its scales sliding against the skin of her ankles. She shrunk against the chair, stomach turning.

Something slimy began moving up her leg and she made the mistake of cracking open an eyelid. Its menacing eyes appeared above her knee, glinting as it opened its mouth in a hiss. Behind the fangs and poison-bathed forked tongue, in the dark corner of the dingy cell, a body moved.

Her eyes focused and her heart screamed out.

He studied her silently, his mossy eyes curious. He did not seem alarmed at the mammoth, venomous snake making its way up her leg, even as her heart pounded in her ears and her throat closed in terror. She wanted to cry out for his help, but she opened her mouth and the words snagged into a tangle.

_Please_, she managed the mouth as the snake began to slide up her thigh. Her eyes were pools of chocolate fear.

And for once, for _once,_ Tony seemed to hear her. He moved from the shadows, striding across the room without getting so much a spot of dirt on his black suit and still paying no mind to the massive reptile winding its way up her body. His clean hand reached out and it seemed as if he intended to cup her face. Yearning to feel a touch that carried something other than cruelty and malice, she tilted her head toward him ever so slightly.

Then centimeters from contact, he pulled away. Fearful brown eyes met pitying green ones, and with a last glance he turned his back and walked out the door, leaving her to die.

Her breath came in gasps and her body slumped, defeated and devastated. The snake wound its way up her torso until its flat, hideous head rested at her neck. Her pulse beat against its pale jaw that opened in a hiss, baring razor-sharp teeth.

Then it lunged, moving to sink its fangs and its venom into her throat, and she closed her eyes and let it.

. . .

Even asleep she could not escape it. Her dreams were full of stinging scorpions, of raging fires and burning sisters, of venomous snakes. But mostly there was Tony. He was always there, sometimes with Gibbs at his side, standing by impassively as she quaked in fear and agony. Sometimes she was conscious enough to know that she deserved it, after what she had done. The scorpion venom was nothing compared to the sting of their apathy.

She always woke to baking, suffocating sun. The closed room was a veritable oven, and if she hadn't grown up in the desert that would have been a torture in and of itself. Her wounds festered in the baking heat. It was arid, and she could almost feel the water evaporating from her body. They gave her small amounts of dirty water every day or so, if they remembered. She was not sure of the last time she had been fed, but it was before they started with the new serum—at least five cigarette burns ago.

The day after the snake, Saleem entered the room once again with a fabric case under his arm.

"Still holding out, hm?" He pulled the syringe from its case and spurted a bit of the clear liquid from the needle. It landed in droplets on the dark and dusty ground. It looked like water, but when it saturated her blood it far from gave life. After grinding the customary lit cigarette against her flesh, he slid the thin piece of metal into her arm with little fanfare.

And she was feeling particularly rebellious, so she swallowed and responded, "I am… going to die either way." Her mouth and throat were dry, tasting of blood, and her voice was hoarse and broken from disuse. "What do I… have to lose?"

His eyebrow quirked up; he was obviously surprised. "I can do this forever, Little Ziva," he assured her as he pushed the drugs into her body. "I have all the time in the world, and eventually, you will crack. They all do. You are not special. No one cares what happens to you." He pulled the needle from her forearm with a condescending pat. "You will not die, I will not let that happen. But I will bring you close, every day, for however long is necessary." He moved to the door. "Tony is not looking for you. Gibbs is not looking for you. They are letting this happen. _No one_ thinks you are worth their time." And with that he left, the door slamming shut behind him.

Seconds later, water began to seep in from under it. The fear was back once again, no longer surprising, as the flow became more and more powerful. The small room soon became flooded, turning the dirt to mud. At first the cool water was a relief against her hot skin, but the flow did not stop and the water level steadily continued to rise. The clear liquid was streaming in from every crack in the door now, even the top, and it showed absolutely no signs of stopping.

Ziva had always been a good swimmer, so it was unlike her to be so afraid of water. However, it was remarkably difficult to tread water while zip-tied to a chair, and either way the room was filling up fast, with no outlet. Soon all the air would be displaced.

As the water reached her waist she couldn't stop herself from taking panicked gulps of precious oxygen. She struggled against the bonds like she never had before, knowing that maybe, just _maybe,_ if she could get herself loose she could swim to the window behind her and blow out the glass plane. And then she could run, run, _run _far away from this place and never look back.

It was unrealistic from the start, for even if she could get loose, it had been a month since she'd moved more than her neck or fingers. Her muscles no doubt would have atrophied away to nothing. Still, supposing that adrenaline managed to power her enough to break the window, hundreds of kilometers of desert still stretched in either direction. Even a healthy woman would not make it. Ziva, with her broken body and spirit, would die in a day.

Still, she would be dying on her own terms, and even a slow, lonely death from dehydration would be better than suffering at the hands of this monster, than being his guinea pig and pin cushion, for the rest of her existence. So she struggled, but the water was reaching her shoulders and she had only served to tear even deeper wounds into her wrists.

But then, as she tilted her mouth to the sky and her ears were submerged, she realized something that was really quite obvious—it would be better to give up. The loud roar of churning water became muted. Underneath the surface it was almost peaceful. And death from drowning, while it sent freezing shards of terror into her heart, would surely be quicker and less painful than dying in the desert.

Both the chair and her body were buoyant, and so as the water level rose they were risenwith it. The current turned her in circles and her entire head disappeared under the surface many times, only to reappear once again. Each time she went under she screwed her eyes shut, unsure whether this would be the time that she never again came up for air. But each time she was returned to the surface, gasping and sputtering and blinking the water out of her eyes.

And then she would be tossed under again, helplessly bound to the sturdy chair, and it repeated. Every time she came back up the water level was closer to the ceiling. It had already engulfed the light fixture, which sputtered out and delivered a mild electric shock. The space for air decreased and decreased until finally she had to almost press her lips up against the ceiling to bring oxygen to her aching lungs. She only managed a bit before she was dragged back under the surface.

With the room full the water calmed down, and for a moment she could pretend that she was swimming in the pool at the ranch in Haifa. She opened her eyes, the salt stinging as she took in her blurry surroundings. All she could see was the light streaming in from the window, bending in the waves. With a frown she blinked, looking closer. It was blurry, but there was something there, on the other side of the glass, and it almost looked like squared shoulders, a head, a shock of brown hair. The last bits of air came out in bubble from her mouth as she tried to call to him, even if she knew he would do nothing. She could not see for sure, but she had a feeling that the look on Tony's face was one of distant indifference.

Her lungs burned and ached in the absence of oxygen. It felt as if they were collapsing, and she knew there was nothing more to do. With fear's icy fingers wrapped around her heart she let her eyelids fall.

_They're the reason you are here… They are letting this happen._

The waterlogged words echoed back to her as the world went black.

. . .

It continued like this for longer than she cared to think about.

The day after she drowned, Saleem entered with the same syringe and the same drug. By now, a pattern had emerged, and Ziva took what comfort she could from this new predictability.

He would put out his cigarette on her skin, then shoot the chemicals into her arm. With them would spread the familiar, uncontrollable terror. Sometimes he would whisper terrible things in her ear as the hallucinogen seeped into her bloodstream. They were always similar in content, delivery, and believability, but Ziva often underestimated the power of suggestion. She almost did not notice that she had begun to accept his words as plausible more and more each day. Even when she did notice, it made no difference—the fear was a disease, and she was injected with the virus in liquid form every day. Fear was irrational, and so was she.

What happened after the injection was often a repeat of past horrors. However, the scorpions and the snake and the fire and water were still just as terrifying as the first time she suffered them. They were no less awful, even the fourth or fifth time.

Weeks passed. The cigarette welts numbered in the fifties, and soon he ran out of room on both arms. From there he moved to her stomach. It took a little maneuvering of ragged clothes, but it hurt so much more. She imagined that was what he aimed for.

There was little meat left on her bones anymore—there was little left of her, in general. She had not seen her reflection since being captured, but she knew that she was a perfect picture of suffering and misery. She was pitiful, really. They never removed her from that chair, not even to relieve herself, and by now she was used to the stench but Saleem found it abhorrent. Every now and then he would bring a bucket full of water to douse her in an attempt to help with the smell. After he left, she would desperately lick the moisture from around her mouth. She hated what he'd managed to reduce her to—a pile of wretched skin and bones slumped feebly against a chair, barely breathing and barely sane.

She rarely experienced moments without fear. She suspected that he was altering the concoction of drugs to make the effects last longer and linger more prominently, because even at night she was afraid. Sleep, a hallucinogen in and of itself, was almost as horrifying as the affects of the drug. She did not always remember what she dreamed of, but usually they were stronger repeats of what she saw during the day.

As a result, she rarely slept. To do that she only had to focus on the pain, and since the pain was everywhere it was no difficult task. Dehydration made her head and kidneys ache perpetually. Her throat and tongue felt like sandpaper; her stomach felt concave. On the outside her stomach burned as the rough cloth of her shirt brushed against the growing myriad of cigarette welts. There was a residual burn in her veins and a constant pain in her wrists and ankles from when she struggled against her bonds. Pain was not hard to come by in that miserable cell, in that God-forsaken chair. Under her eyes, bags the color of the finger-shaped bruises on her neck became more and more prominent each day.

It was not a clean place, of course. The baking heat made it a perfect breeding ground for bacteria, and her immune system, running on empty given the stark lack of nutrition, was severely compromised. With her various open wounds, infection was common. They would turn red and puffy or green and pussy, and she had dealt with a lot of wounds in her life but she couldn't help but be thoroughly disgusted. It was a wonder an infection hadn't killed her yet, and she wondered if perhaps this _was_ really some form of divine retribution. She should not still be alive.

Yet here she was, her battered, defiant heart pumping away.

. . .

"I have to admit, I did not think you would ever last this long."

Saleem was standing in front of her, studying her blankly in a way that reminded her of Tony. He took a puff from the cigarette he held between two sharp fingers.

"Maybe this room is too luxurious for you, hmm? Maybe we would be better off moving you somewhere more… intimate. I could tie you up in the barracks. I have thirty men that have not seen a woman in quite some time. What do you think of that, Little Ziva?"

She couldn't stop the shiver that traveled violently down her spine at his threat. By some miracle—or rather, Saleem's macabre idea that she was a challenge reserved solely for him—she had escaped that particular horror so far, but she did not think he was bluffing when he threatened it.

"Or," he mused as he pushed her loose, grimy shirt up with his pointed finger, "we could go for something on the opposite end of the spectrum. Complete isolation." She shuddered as he used his other hand to bring the lit cigarette close enough to her belly button that she could feel the heat on her skin. "I have a box, Ziva, a wooden box. It is no bigger than a coffin. Say I put you in there, drill a few holes, yes? Run an IV down into your arm."

He slowly pressed the white-hot end against her concave stomach, dragging it along her pale skin. She gritted her teeth.

Moving back over to the table, he picked up the familiar syringe. "That is all I would need, you know. A few hoses for air and a little IV tube to feed you just enough to keep you alive. But mostly it would just be_ this_," he spurted some of the liquid out of the needle, "flowing into your veins. Then, I could take that coffin and have my men bury it six feet under the sand. And then I could give you a little walkie-talkie, so that when you finally have had enough you could radio up to me and tell me _everything_ that you know about NCIS." His foul hand came up to brush a wild, blood-crusted curl from her face. "How would you like that, hmm, Little Ziva?"

Her lips curled up in a sneer, but she did not respond, because honestly, she was having trouble remembering why she was holding out. For Tony? For Gibbs? For NCIS? Those words spawned nothing but fear now. They brought to mind memories of indifferent faces and a sense betrayal so strong that her breath came out in a sharp, whimpering exhale. A small part of her brain tried to insist that, no, it was she who had done the betraying, but all she seemed to be able to remember was the apathy in Tony's eyes as he watched her suffer. After a month of seeing it every single day, fear had burned his unconcerned gaze into the forefront of her memory.

And yet, she still was protecting these people. Perhaps it would be better to tell him what she knew and finally, _finally,_ leave this terrible place behind.

But as she opened her mouth to tell him what he wanted to know, she realized something—she did not know anything, not anything he would be interested in at least. The few codes she did know were practically useless, even if they weren't already out of date. She knew some of the inner-workings of the organization, but nothing Saleem could find beneficial.

She simply did not have what he wanted.

He sunk the needle into her arm just as she forced the broken, coarse words from her sandpaper throat, "I… do not know… anything."

He just smirked. "Nice try." And with that, he pushed the drugs into her body and left.

That day, the hallucination was new. The walls around her closed in, in, in, until she was left in a pitch black, cramped and airless box. Overhead, she thought she could hear the sound of shovels throwing dirt onto the top. Then there was a voice, one that did not belong to Saleem.

"Comfy yet, Ziva?"

And she knew that voice, knew it from bullpen banters and bathroom encounters and rooftop confrontations and _for you._

Her fear of him was so strong that she almost didn't feel the betrayal.

. . .

The hallucinations took on a new tone, after that. The scorpions still stung and the fire still burned; all of those recurrent horrors remained equally horrifying. Her attention, however, seemed to have shifted, because while the pain of all these things was there, it now took second place to _him._

Tony was always there, always. Sometimes he lurked in the corner, other times at the window, but he always wore that terrible mask of indifference. She could not get her mind off of him, even as snakes circled or water filled her lungs.

He was there, he was watching, and he did nothing.

Sometimes she would allow the anger to wash over her at his apathy, and she would scream at him to _help her, dammit!_ Sometimes desperation was the order of the day, and she would beg him to tell her what she had done for him to hate her this much.

"_I am sorry, Tony,"_ she would plead as the flames licked at her feet or the scorpions crawled up her legs. "_I am sorry for not trusting you, for the terrible things I said. Forgive me, please."_

But he never helped her. Sometimes he would turn his back and walk away, and others a horrible smile of morbid amusement would creep onto his face.

"_This is not you,"_ she would sometimes implore, but nothing ever stopped him from standing idly by as she suffered.

She barely paid Saleem any attention. He would come, put out his cigarette, whisper terrible things in her ear as he injected her, and leave. The line between the world when she was on the drugs and the world when she was herself became increasingly blurred.

One day, after Saleem left, there was a new horror awaiting her.

It started out innocent enough. First through the door was a young boy that she had not seen since she was a child. They had been the best of friends, playing during the summer from sunrise to sunset. He was a few years older and always watched out for her.

"Hi, Ziva," he greeted with a huge smile on his face. She couldn't help but return the gesture, even as her bleeding lips stretched and protested.

"Mahmoud," she replied, dazed. "What are…you doing here?" Her voice was as cracked as her lips.

"I wanted to play! My _baba _said it was okay as long as I was home for dinner. Want to play tag?"

She licked her lips with a dry tongue and looked down at her bound hands and feet. "I cannot." A mischievous grin tugged at his mouth as he pulled a small army knife from his pocket.

"Mama and baba gave it to me for Eid," he informed her. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. "Do you want me to cut you free?"

She shakily sucked in air, eyes wide and hopeful. "_Yes_."

He knelt in front of her and flicked open the blade, starting work on her right ankle. She tried to take a deep breath.

"I missed you… Mahmoud," she managed to force out, just as he cut her leg free. He looked up quickly, a gentle smile on his face.

"I missed you t—"

And it came so quickly, so suddenly, that she did not have time to process it until it was over. There was a high whistling noise and within seconds the room had been engulfed in explosive fire. When the flames died away she was untouched, but Mahmoud lay dead at her feet. He was nothing more than a charred, child-sized lump of skin and bones. She screamed and remembered oh-so-abruptly the rocket that had killed her friend all those years ago.

Seconds later, her mother came through the door, holding the bags she always took to the market on Sunday mornings. They were full of fresh fruit, vegetables, and bread.

"_Ima,"_ Ziva greeted, brow furrowed. "You went to the market without Tali?"

Rivka shrugged. "Your sister was up very late last night, I figured she could use some sleeping in."

And then Ziva blinked, and suddenly there was a flash of headlights and the squealing of brakes and the rev of an engine that faded into the distance, and her mother lay broken and bleeding on the ground, surrounded by scattered groceries.

"_Ima!"_ Ziva screamed, but there was nothing to be done. Her mother's body lay dead next to Mahmoud's, and suddenly it was so easy to remember that article in the newspaper with the headline, _Hit-and-Run Kills 36-year-old Mother of Two._

Next through the door was Tali, young and agile and so beautiful that Ziva's heart ached.

"Ziva, guess what! I got the lead in the school play!" she exclaimed, eyes lit with excitement.

"Oh, Tali, _mazel tov,"_ Ziva replied with wide eyes, "I promise I will be there to see it."

Then from the corner of her eye she saw a small flashing light under the table against the wall, and horror flooded her body.

"Tali, you need to get out of here!" she screamed. "_Run!_"

And once again the room exploded into flames that left her untouched and a second child's blackened body littering the floor. Ziva threw her head back, shrieking and sobbing her sister's name over and over again.

After her sister was her brother. He strode through the doorway confidently, a sniper rifle under his arm.

"It is Abba's fault that I am like this," he told her. "Come with me, Ziva, please. We can get away from him and his orders. You do not know the things he has done."

Ziva's brow furrowed. "Ari, he is our father—"

"Do you know the things he has done? He_ killed_ my mother! And now he has ordered you to kill me too. What kind of man does such a thing? A monster, Ziva. Our father is a monster."

"And you killed an innocent woman!"

"He made me like this."

And she knew what happened next, so she screwed her eyes shut and looked away as from just next to her a gunshot rang out. When she finally opened them again, Ari had been added to the pile of bodies laid out in front of her, bleeding from a hole in his head.

In her bound hand was a smoking gun, and she shivered and dropped it. It hit the ground with a clatter.

She heard footsteps in the doorway, and she looked up, startled. Standing in the threshold was her father who looked impassively at the scene before him. His wife, his son, and his youngest daughter all lay dead in a pile at his feet while his oldest daughter sat broken and bleeding in a chair behind them.

He gave a nod of satisfaction and disappeared down the hallway, and Ziva did not have the energy to be surprised.

And then in the doorway was Tony, with his business suit and ruffled hair and animated green eyes. For a moment she allowed herself to feel a glimmer of hope. This was Tony, the real Tony, compassionate and silly and trustworthy. Her would save her. He would take her from this terrible place.

He came up to kneel down in front of her just as Mahmoud had, reaching down into his pocket to pull out what she could only assume would be a knife to cut her other leg loose. Instead, however, his hand held a pristine plastic zip tie, and with a blank expression he wrapped it around the chair leg and her just-freed right ankle. She inhaled sharply, shaking, eyes wide.

He stood, stepped back, and cocked his head to the side. His mouth twitched.

"You deserve this, Ziva," Tony said in a voice that sounded more like a promise than a statement.

And then he left her alone and sobbing, surrounded by the corpses of all those who ever cared for her.

. . .

She could tell that Saleem was becoming restless. For two months now he had made breaking her his own personal challenge, and she knew his patience was wearing thin. While before he seemed to relish in the words he whispered into her ear, now they took on a curt edge. The serum itself was not working, and the logical next step would be to take the torture to the next level.

She had always pegged him as a man who did not like to get his hands dirty. Even when she first arrived, if there was blood to be drawn, it was often his men who did it. He was the mastermind—he asked the questions and watched.

But there were tortures that did not require him to dirty his hands, and it was these that he settled on as they entered the third month. First, it was waterboarding. He entered the room with towels and the fabric syringe case tucked under his arm. Behind him, one of his men carried a bucket full of water that sloshed around inside as it was slammed on the table. Saleem for once did not bother grinding his cigarette into her stomach, and wasted no time in grabbing the back of the chair and dragging it on two legs over to the table. There, he propped it up at an angle, so that her face was angled toward the ceiling. The world spun off balance—it was the first time she had been moved from that spot in two months.

He placed the towel over her horizontal face and secured it behind her head before he uncapped the syringe and pushed the familiar drugs into her arm. She had been waterboarded before—in fact, it was a part of her training for Mossad. As it was a physically harmless torture, they used it frequently to demonstrate enhanced interrogation techniques. It had been horrible then, but with the serum entering her bloodstream it was worse now. The torture kept her in the present and the hallucinations at bay, but the fear still raged like a fire in her heart.

When he finally dragged her chair back to the center and left, and she could breathe again, she fully expected the room to start flooding given what she knew about the serum. However, the room remained dry and quiet, at least for a moment.

It was then that she noticed Tony standing in the corner.

She swallowed and tried to regain her breath. "Have you been here… all this time?" She did not expect him to reply.

"Most of it," he responded, shrugging nonchalantly. She took a breath and gave a nod of acceptance, her gaze now fixed emptily on the door. Her hands shook from the liquid fear still in her veins.

"Just… watching?"

"Yep."

She hesitated, looking down at her raw wrists. "Why?"

From across the room she heard a bark of laughter. "Why not?"

A lump formed in her parched throat. "You are not real."

"Don't be so sure of that, sweetcheeks." Tony moved, then, began circling her like that dreaded desert viper. "I'm just as real as you are." As he passed behind her he let his fingers pass through her knotted hair. "Don't you feel that? I'm real." His hand travelled to her cheek and parted with a soft smack. Her nostrils flared and jaw clenched.

"Why are you here, Tony?"

He chuckled, green eyes mocking. "You still haven't figured it out." It wasn't a question.

"What is there to figure out?" she asked, trying to hide the quaver in her voice. He cocked an eyebrow, lazily walking over to the table.

"Well it's not very fun to have to explain it to you," he responded. "Maybe I should let you think about it a little more. I'll come back tomorrow, and when he's through with you we'll talk. I hear he's got something great planned for you." He headed toward the door and delivered his final line with a cruel smirk, "I picked it out myself."

When he left, the relief she felt was monumental.

. . .

_Something great_ turned out to be an electric cattle prod. Saleem injected her, then took what was left in the bucket from yesterday and poured it over her head. Over and over again he jabbed her with the baton, on her stomach, chest, neck, feet… Her muscles clenched as the current surged through her body. Sometimes, he let the prod linger, and she could smell her flesh sizzling under it.

Tony was there from the beginning, leaning calmly against the wall as her body seized and shook. She did not know how long Saleem continued, but eventually, mercifully, it ended, and she was once again left alone with Tony.

"So," he began, strolling across the room, kicking up dust that seemed to roll right off his pristine pair of black pants, "you figure it out yet?"

"Saleem works for you," she deadpanned.

"Oh, but it's so much more interesting than that!"

"You watch too many movies, Tony."

"Ziva…" he clucked, advancing, "look at you. Bleeding and broken but still with just enough fire to make snippy remarks." He reached out to take her pale, skeletal fingers in his. With one swift movement, he bent one back sharply. There was a crack and a radiating, throbbing pain. She whimpered, and he moved on to her middle finger.

"Please," she pleaded, eyes screwed shut. "Please, Tony, stop this."

"You've tortured people before," he mused as he snapped that finger in two, as well. "Did they beg for mercy like that, too? Did you stop? Or did you just," _snap, _"keep," _snap, _"going?" When his voice died away and he straightened his back, every finger but her thumb lay bent and useless. A pained tear rolled down her cheek, and he wiped it away with a deceitfully gentle hand.

"_Please."_

He cocked his head, picking up the cattle prod that Saleem had left on the table. "You can beg all you want, Ziva. Nothing's gonna change the fact that you deserve everything I'm going to do to you." Slowly, he strolled back toward her, inspecting the cruel instrument in his hands. That horrid smile crept up on his face once again, and in a swift move he shoved the prod into her abdomen.

She realized with horror, when an hour had passed and the dreadful fear still pulsed as powerful as ever in her veins, that Saleem must have finally succeeded in lengthening the effects of the serum. It did not fade until the sun went down, at which time Tony finally left her alone. She was so weak that she could barely hold up her head.

A strange man came at night with a refilled syringe, a complete violation of established protocol. He was an amateur and it took a few misplaced jabs, but he finally, painfully, succeeded in pushing more of the long-lasting serum into her. His eyes studied her with a palpable desire that sent shivers down her spine. He left without a word, and the fear blossomed anew.

She did not sleep that night, for Tony had come back. He stood silently in the corner, watching, waiting, overseeing her gentle slide into insanity. The effects mostly faded by morning, at which time Saleem appeared in the doorway with more. A new angle emerged—a perpetual cycle of terror.

The next morning, it was not Saleem who entered with the syringe but Tony. Something about him was different, something in the way he carried himself. She could not pinpoint the change exactly, so she disregarded it.

"I'm getting impatient," Tony told her as he advanced with the syringe. There was a strange lilt in his words, one that did not belong with the American speaker, but she quickly wrote it off, pegging it as the fault of the serum. He continued as he bent down to insert the needle, "You will not like what happens next. Usually I do not resort to such measures, but you've given me no choice."

She frowned, unable to make sense of the words. "Impatient, Tony? Impatient…for what? What do you want…from me?"

His hands froze on her arm and he looked up at her with a curious expression. A small smile played at his lips and he soon continued replenishing the serum in her veins.

"I want you to suffer, Ziva." He then stood and headed toward the door, not bothering to close it behind him. "I'll be right back."

Tony was only gone for a few minutes, and what she saw when he returned made her hair stand on end and a lump form in her throat. She clenched her jaw tightly, trying to keep on a brave face, as her eyes followed the length of iron chain and single tailed bullwhip coiled in his hand.

As he approached and the serum sunk into her veins, the fear, which now was in a never-ending cycle of ebb and flow, began a steady climb toward its peak. She could already feel the stinging bite of the whip's tail, could already hear the _crack_ as it tore her skin. She shook.

Tony sat the whip down on the table and advanced toward her with the chain and a knife in hand. She shrunk away, wondering if it was possible to disappear into the wooden chair she had been sitting in for over two months. He cocked his head before slowly leaning down to cut the zip ties. He was not careful, and sometimes sliced bits of her wrists and ankles at the same time. The skin there was so torn and rotten, so accustomed to pain, that she hardly noticed.

"I figured it was about time we shook things up a bit," Tony narrated as picked up the chain. "Hold out your hands."

She rarely had opportunities for defiance, so she snatched this one up and stared him straight in the eye, unmoving. He gave her that crooked smile that she had seen so many times from across the bullpen.

"Ziva, don't be an idiot." His voice was a warning, but she did not heed it.

Her cracked lip curled up in a sneer. "_Bite me,_ Tony."

His eyes darkened and it was only seconds before he retaliated. The back of his hand connected swiftly and powerfully with her jaw, whipping her head to the side and reopening a cut on her cheek. She grunted, and he looked at her expectantly. She knew there was nothing to be gained by refusal, not when she knew he would take his resulting anger out on her with the tapered cord a few feet away. She held out her wrists, defeat written in her slumped shoulders and averted gaze.

The cold chain dug into her arms as he secured it. With a tug he pulled her out of the chair and face-first onto the ground, delivering a little kick to her stomach to ensure she did not try to move. She felt like an animal.

He then dragged the chair a few feet toward the window and, standing on it, tossed the chain over a hook in the ceiling she'd never noticed before. It created a rudimentary pulley system that, when pulled taut from the other end, tugged at Ziva's arms. Not wanting to be dragged across the filthy floor, she struggled to stand, but her legs were limp and useless. Her skin burned as Tony pulled the chain and hauled her over to the base of the chair. He stepped down and pulled harder, and she was lifted into the air by her wrists. He tied it off by securing the chain to another metal hook in the wall just below the window. Her slack body rotated around, changing direction a few times, before the chain stilled. Her toes hung inches from the ground.

Tony then reached up with the knife and, with only a few incisions, managed to cut her blood-crusted shirt off of her torso. She squeezed her eyes shut, humiliated. He had seen her naked before—flashes of a long summer full of take out dinners and sweaty skin and soft, crumpled bed sheets flashed in front of her eyes, and she would have cherished it if she had known that in a few weeks she would not be able to remember any of it. But this was different, he was different. The passion in his touch was not gentle and lustful but violent and so very angry.

Tony shrugged off the suit jacket and pushed the sleeves of his white shirt up to his elbows. He dusted his hands off and picked up the bullwhip from the table, uncoiling it and running the leather over his clean palm. He studied it in the light that streamed in through the glass pane behind her. She trembled.

The first time he snapped the whip, it landed with a sinister _crack_ across her back and delivered a shooting, burning pain. Her eyes watered and she bit her lip, trying to distract herself with a different pain. It did not work, and seconds later he had wound up his shoulder once again and brought down a second blow. It sliced into her skin oh-so-smoothly and tears welled in her eyes. An inhuman noise of agony built in her throat. Somewhere she could hear her father tut-tutting in disapproval. She should have been able to stay quiet through so much more, but her threshold for pain was completely shot after months of torture.

She did not know how long he rained blows down on her torso, but when he finished, her back was in shreds and her head hung limp. Hot tears of agony cut paths down her dirty cheeks and fell to the ground, mixing with the drops of blood that had run down her body to drip from her toes. She did not have the energy to scream as Tony delivered the final excruciating blow.

He stood back then walked around to her front, flicking the blood off the soaked bullwhip. It splattered against the cement wall. The tip of it accidentally hit her foot and she jerked involuntarily, sucking in a tortured breath. Tony then reached out and held her chin up, forcing her to look him in the eyes.

"Had enough, Ziva?"

Eyes unfocused and distant, she managed to work up the strength to respond with a weak, defeated nod. He smirked, walking over to the window.

"Good."

It only took him a few seconds to unsecure the chain, and with a loud clattering noise gravity pulled her back down into a crumpled heap on the floor. The heavy iron chain fell down on top of her, smarting against the fresh, throbbing wounds.

He kicked her leg lightly, and it gave like that of a ragdoll. She did not have the strength to even lift her head. Satisfied, he grabbed the empty syringe off the table and exited the cell, leaving her folded limply on the ground like a broken bird with bloody wrists still bound in front of her. The door slammed shut behind him and she flinched.

Mercifully, it was only minutes before she blacked out.

. . .

To her horror, it continued like this in the weeks that followed. At night, Tony would come, wordlessly inject the serum, and leave. Its paralyzing effects held steady until morning. Sometimes she managed to fall asleep, usually passing out from pure pain and exhaustion, only to be haunted in a world where sisters died before her eyes and scorpions crawled by the thousands up her legs. Most of the time, however, the nights were spent awake in a lonely terror. Perhaps she was getting used to the symptoms of whatever they injected her with, but the hallucinations were no so common anymore. Instead, she would lie in the moon-bathed cell and wonder what horrors Tony would subject her to when the sun rose.

Slowly but surely, she was losing herself. It was becoming increasingly hard to remember life before Somalia, before the serum, before Tony's torture. Her mind was full of jumbled up puzzle pieces, none of which seemed to fit with any other. So she did what anyone would do—her very best. What she ended up with was a lopsided memory of the months before she entered this God-forsaken desert. She replayed this recent personal history so many times in those empty, fearful nights that it became unquestionable truth. The story in all its flawed details was cemented into her mind by the river of sticky blood flowing ceaselessly from her veins.

Tony had killed Michael Rivkin in cold blood, of that much she was sure. She remembered walking in to her apartment and finding him standing over the dying body of her beloved friend, smoking gun clenched in an unapologetic hand. Gibbs had helped him cover it up, writing it off as self defense, but she had known the truth, and she fled.

She remembered getting on the plane, and remembered Vance insisting that he, Gibbs, and Tony come along. In Israel she'd gone straight to her father, who told her that if she finished Michael's mission he would ensure that Tony came nowhere near her again. But apparently he had not held up his promise, because only miles from Mogadishu a firefight had broken out on board the Damocles—men employed by Tony, she now knew. He had employed Saleem, too.

Tony was the one behind her capture. She did not know why, and she did not care. To her drugged and trampled mind, it was the only explanation, and the only thing she knew for sure. The constant, unbearable suffering and unshakeable fear left no room for anything else.

He always came in the morning to inject her. His torture method of choice tended to vary. Sometimes it was simple, just a knife. He carved into her skin and whispered words like _worthless _and _pathetic _and_ disgusting_. He never bothered replacing her shirt. On certain occasions, torments like the cattle prod and waterboarding made reprises, sometimes separately, and on a few occasions at the same time. Once he brought a red-hot fire poker, and it burned like a thousand of Saleem's cigarettes, filled the cell with the stench of melting flesh. Tony would sometimes re-break her fingers simply for the fun of it, all the while telling her she would never be able to hold a gun again. That did not matter too much to her. There were a lot of things she would never do again. One day he smashed her foot with a club, and she added walking to the list.

Eventually, the chair was removed from the room. She was too weak to bother securing, and they both knew it. Her feet were broken, muscles atrophied, mind too flooded with pain to be conscious of anything but her injuries and his terrible, terrible green eyes. She wondered if this was what it meant to be broken.

And then, going on three months in captivity, the final straw was placed upon her back.

The sun had just set and the door creaked open, to which she was accustomed. It was Tony, as usual, come to deliver the night dose of the serum. Something was different, however, and when he knelt down next to where she was lying to slide the needle under her skin, she smelled a hint of whiskey on his breath. His darkening green eyes glinted in the moonlight as they hungrily roamed her pallid, skeletal torso. The predatory gaze seemed to catch on her bare, scarred breasts and she shivered, shrinking away from him.

He yanked the needle sharply from her arm and his thick fingers returned to roam over the injection site. She tried to pull her arm away, but to no avail.

Somehow, she had allowed herself to think that she'd escaped this particular horror. It was a foolish idea. His hands roamed and her eyes squeezed shut. She trembled as his hand moved to the button on her filthy, soiled cargo pants. It did not take long for Tony to tear them and her undergarments from her body, leaving her a naked, shaking skeleton.

She lay there on her back, still as death, while he did as he pleased.

His hot, panting breath filled her ear as he satisfied his lust with her agony, and the room echoed low with the sound of animal grunts, of bestial growls. Tony's hands were everywhere, everywhere, pinching and scratching and bruising, knotting in her hair and yanking. Fractured memories throbbed in the space behind her clenched eyelids with every stabbing, tearing pain, pieces of a life she'd long since locked away. Jagged recollections of shed clothing, passionate groans, his naked weight atop her, left as quickly as they came, but left her cut and bleeding. Her pants were filthy and ripped, his sadistic growls coupled with agonized, open-mouthed silence, and his body crushing, crippling, ruining hers from the inside out. She wanted to weep, to curl in on herself and disappear from the earth, but she was pinned flat to the floor beneath him and her eyes had no more tears. She was still, a limp rag doll, helpless as Tony laid waste to the temple that housed her ruined soul.

A few times she cried out. Sudden stabs of agony wrenched low pleas, mournful and wordless, from her desecrated body. But her pain encouraged him, excited him, put more force behind his furious and complete destruction. She burned everywhere, inside, outside.

Her empty, broken gaze remained blankly fixed on a small blood-spattered patch of ceiling as she waited for Tony to be through. Once he had finished tearing her apart, once he'd turned her inside out and infected her with himself, he unknotted his hands from her hair, stood, and pulled up his pants. He looked down at the jagged wreckage of his violent lust and smirked.

"Not bad, sweetcheeks."

. . .

She lay there, immobile, for what felt like hours, trying to tune out the pain and revolting stickiness between her legs. She was paralyzed with the humiliation, the horror, the indignity of it all. Despite the cruelties she had endured at his hand, she had not truly thought Tony capable of this.

She could not bear it anymore. She could not bear the fear, the agony, the never-ending torture at the mercy of this savage man. She could not bear to think of him, with his crisp black suit, ruffled hair, piercing emerald eyes; with his cattle prod and bullwhip and sharp, stinging tongue.

It had been three months, and she had suffered enough.

The plan was developed so calmly, so logically, that it was almost ridiculous to think that it was she, a rotting heap of blood and bones and shorn skin, who had formulated it. Gathering all the strength she could muster, she reached with a trembling hand for her discarded clothes. Her pants, reeking of excrement and rot, were still mostly in one piece. Her heart raced, thumping against the ribcage so visible beneath her sickly skin.

It took all of her power to drag her naked body the few feet to the back wall. The window floated overhead, ethereal, leaving her in its dark shadow. She looked up at the metal hook in the wall, then down at the fabric in her hands, beginning to twist it into something that resembled rope. All it would take were two knots. After all these months, she was so thrillingly close.

But her fingers had been broken and re-broken, and when it came to tying knots she found, after countless painful failures, that they were virtually useless. Even if she had been able to tie the knots, she probably could never have been strong enough to reach the hook just below the window. Her muscles were jelly and her bones shattered and she was so pathetically, helplessly weak.

She tried for hours to tie a good knot. She did not stop even as her feeble, fumbling fingers screamed out in protest. She did not stop even as despairing tears slid down her swollen face when the sun started to rise and she knew Tony would be back soon.

It was her last hope at escape, so she did not stop.

When morning came, she was still in the same spot, her naked, emaciated body curled like a shattered question mark around a half-formed noose, tears streaming from her face and blood from her crooked, useless fingers. There were noises around her, loud ones, but she did not care. All that mattered was the chance she'd had and been unable to take, and the suffering she was going to endure because of it. The pain would continue, endlessly. She did not even notice that she'd finally descended into madness.

She heard a bang and the door opened, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut. Then there was the sound of slowly approaching footsteps, ones she recognized as belonging to Tony. She shook, grasping the fabric to her chest and trying not to imagine what terrible instrument he carried with him today.

He was right behind her now, she could hear him breathing over her. She wondered if he was drunk again, and prayed to whatever God would listen that he was not. She curled her bare body in tighter, bringing her newly-bruised thighs into her stomach and tucking her ruined face away from him and his wicked hands.

She heard him kneel down beside her, and seconds later put his hand lightly on her shoulder. She jerked away violently, retching.

"Ziva?"

There his hand was again, cool against her bare, scarred back, and she whimpered.

"_No…" _It came out as a low, barely audible moan. "_Please._"

"Ziva, please, it's me, it's Tony…"

"_Get the hell away from me,"_ she seethed brokenly, and his hand withdrew.

"We have to get out of here, Ziva, come on…" he practically begged. She turned her head ever so slightly and cracked her eye open, but there he was with his terrible green eyes and ruffled hair and she tried then to crawl away from him. He grabbed her hand and she cried out miserably.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I… Ziva, please, we need to go _now_." There were gunshots in the hallway and he reached out to her once again. Backed against the wall, there was no escape from his groping hands as they slid under her body, scraping welts and burns and cuts, and pulled her against him. She trembled, eyes flying around the room. She didn't know where he was taking her. Perhaps to be buried alive, like had been threatened so long ago, or maybe she would be tied up in the barracks, just a toy at the disposal of the camp's disgusting men. She made a low keening sound, a terrified noise that could not belong to a human being.

The world was spinning and her blood was thick with fear. She could see Tony's face above her and could feel the pain of months of endless abuse, along with the pull of exhaustion from dozens of sleepless nights.

So when she felt the black encroaching, she willingly let it engulf her.


	2. Chapter 2

**.**

**Part II**

**. . .**

The needle glinted in the sunlight, a small droplet of clear liquid running down its side. Tony had no idea what was in that syringe, and as a man thoroughly afraid of needles—and of being injected with strange substances by knife-wielding terrorists—he eyed the device with apprehension. Soon, the contents were identified as a homemade truth serum, and Tony's nerves compounded.

Not that he would ever let that show, of course.

Tony had always been good at talking out of his ass. It was a veritable talent that gotten him out of quite a few difficult situations. However, sitting bound to a chair in the middle of the desert, being interrogated by a psychopathic terrorist with a penchant for chemical invention and highly caffeinated beverages, he realized he was in a bit over his head. On this particular mission, he might not have minded if Tim McGee weren't lying unconscious on the floor in front of him. Tony had driven into this camp with two very clear objectives in mind, and he planned to achieve both of them, but he was not about to let his loyal partner go down with him. McGee deserved better than that.

Tony looked around as Saleem inserted the needle into his arm, trying to keep his stomach together. The last thing he wanted to do was show an exploitable weakness. Warmth spread through his veins, soon escalating into a slow burn. The room around him wavered, unfocused, and his fingers gripped the armrest tightly and as discreetly as possible.

He suddenly noticed just how hot the room was, how bright the light was, how rough the chair was against his bare arms. The wooden, straight-backed piece of furniture had certainly seen better days. A terrible stench clung to it, fermenting in the baking room and rising to fill his nostrils. The pungent odor was a mix of rot, urine, and human suffering. As the room spun around him, he idly wondered how many people had sat in this chair, bled in this chair, died in this chair before him. It was coated in dark stains that no doubt had once been a shade of warm crimson, and he wondered how much of his own blood would come to be added to this macabre testament of anguish.

He remembered abruptly that if Ziva had not died on the Damocles she would have come here, and for a quick moment he was grateful she died. Even drowning, struggling futilely as the water filled her lungs, had to have been a better fate than what she might have faced in this hellhole.

"My name is Saleem Ulman. You will tell me who you are."

Tony tried to swallow the words, but no sooner had he thought the answer than it came tumbling unbidden from his mouth. "I'm Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service."

Tony caught an unexpected glimpse of surprise and recognition flashing across his captor's face. It was very quickly replaced with a small, sinister smile. Saleem took a breath and responded, "You know, a few months ago, I had, uh, not even heard of NCIS. That may have cost the lives of several of my people. That will not happen again. Now please tell me—what is your mission?"

There was a threatening edge to his seemingly polite words. The truth serum made it so that once he asked the questions, Tony could not stop himself from replying. When asked about the team, he spoke of Tim McGee and Leroy Jethro Gibbs, but dropped off before the final name could cross his lips. Only when Saleem directly asked about the fourth member did he reluctantly utter the words.

"Lost her."

"Her?"

"For the last four years, that slot has been filled by Mossad Liaison Officer Ziva David."

Saleem cocked an eyebrow. "Mossad?"

"Mossad."

Tony's heart only filled with hatred toward this man as the conversation progressed. His cheek stung from a rough backhand and his heart stung from thinking of his former partner.

"Ziva's not replaceable," he said, and he meant it. It was the whole reason he was here.

"The, um… the one you lost." Saleem seemed far too interested in this particular topic. "Then why aren't you looking for her?"

"If I could drag her back, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But that's impossible," Tony admitted, and he almost choked on the words that came next. "Ziva David is dead."

It was the first time he had spoken the words out loud, and they cut fiercely and deeply into him with little resistance. He had lived with that reality for the past month, but never had it seemed so real as it did sitting in that oven of a cell with fire smoldering in his veins, about to give his life in memory of hers.

"This… Ziva," Saleem began, circling the chair and fiddling with the knife in his hand. Tony's eyes hardened at hearing her name fall from such an unworthy mouth. His captor continued. "What makes you so sure she is dead?" That question rubbed Tony the wrong way, and his response was cold.

"That doesn't sound like any of your business." He was expecting another backhand, but it never came. Instead, an ominous smile spread across his captor's face.

"Oh, but it is, you see. Because Ziva David is alive… mostly."

And oh, how terrible those words sounded falling from Saleem's grinning mouth. Before today, he would have been thrilled, no matter what, to hear them. For her to be breathing, that alone would have been enough. But sitting there, seeing the sadistic and gleeful look in this man's eyes, he couldn't bring himself to be anything but horrified.

He felt like he had been punched in the gut, the air stolen from his lungs. No, Ziva was not alive. She couldn't be. To be alive would mean she would have been at the mercy of this wretched man for months, and Tony would not, _could not,_ accept that as the truth. His vision swam and his veins burned with a new kind of fire that had nothing to do with the serum.

"You're lying," he forced out through his teeth, nostrils flaring.

"Believe what you want," Saleem shrugged, "But she sat right there, in that very chair. Over the last few months I have gotten very… shall we say acquainted… with your friend," he ran a finger down his knife's steel blade, "with the sound of her screams."

Tony's whole body was shaking now, boiling with rage that he could barely contain. There was something in Saleem's tone that made him forget his doubts, flooding his brain with horrific images of his worst nightmare come to life. On the floor in front of him he saw McGee tense.

_It was then that I promised… I would never be captured alive._

"You _bastard,"_ Tony fumed, struggling against his bonds. "What the hell have you done to her?!" Saleem's disgusting smile only broadened, spreading across his entire face. Tony was just about to scream at him, demand to see her, demand that she be released and he kept in her place, when a bullet ended it all.

There was a loud crack, the sound of a breaking window, and seconds later Saleem's body collapsed with a dull thud on the dirty concrete. From the exit wound in the back of his head flowed a river of thick crimson, as finally the blood of the torturer joined the blood of the tortured that dotted and stained the floor. It was far too quick for Tony's taste, and it was not the vengeance he had pictured, but Saleem Ulman was dead and Ziva's life honored.

Ziva. _Ziva._

McGee was cutting at the zip ties on his wrists, but all he could hear was Saleem's taunts echoing in his head. _Alive… mostly._ Tony did not want to know what that meant, and a part of him hoped everything the man had said was a lie.

But then there was the growing part of him that trembled at the thought of Ziva, his Ziva, _alive._ It terrified him, and intoxicated him at the same time.

"We need to find her, Tim," he said as he finally stood up, ignoring the way his knees creaked like an old man's. The door burst open and a terrorist ran in, firing rapidly. Luckily, Gibbs was quicker and the man fell dead. A sense of urgency filled him—what if, in all the commotion, they decided to kill her now?

"Hurry," he urged, grabbing Saleem's gun and giving him a swift kick for good measure.

And then somehow Gibbs was there, and he was saying things like _let's go home,_ but no, that was wrong, because Ziva could still be here, they needed to save Ziva… Only then did he realize he was mumbling like a mad man. McGee, ever the level-headed one, explained what Saleem had said.

"McGee and I 'll take care of securing the rest of the camp. DiNozzo— find her."

He did not have to be told twice, and soon he was moving throughout the compound with ninja-like stealth (and the irony of that was not lost on him). He opened door after door, turned corner after corner with the gun held in front of him. He shot three people before he found it.

The room sat at the end of a hallway, very similar to the one he'd been prisoner in. The door was just as heavy, with a wooden latch from the outside to keep whatever was inside from getting out. As he neared the door, the stench hit him in waves, much worse than it had been earlier. His feet shuffled forward almost on their own accord, and soon he'd pushed open the door to reveal a cell almost half the size of his, with the same high window and lonely light fixture and table shoved against the wall. There were no chairs in this cell, but it did have something that his hadn't.

A crumpled, naked body, lying lifeless near the back wall.

He knew instantly that it was her. The closer he approached, the less this pitiful creature looked like his former partner, but his certainty never wavered. This was Ziva David.

He approached slowly, but still it felt as if he was running toward her. His fingers ached to feel her pulse beating in her neck, his eyes to see her eyelids flutter or chest expand. But the terror that he was too late, that he would be taking home nothing but an empty corpse, slowed his steps and narrowed his vision.

Soon he was only feet away, towering over her shrunken body like a giant. From here he could see her moving, and he let out a sigh of relief. Only then did he realize that she was trembling.

Up close, her could see the damage these men had wrought on her. She was curled into a fetal position, her body turned in on itself in an instinctive attempt to protect her vital organs. Her previously toned olive skin was ghostly pale. It, like her hair that was spread blood-soaked and torn on the ground around her head, had lost any shine it once possessed and was now dull and lifeless. Her nudity allowed him to see every miserable wound on the back of her body, and it was enough to make him sick. Long, thin welts stretched from the back of her neck to where the dimples at the bottom of her spine used to be. She'd lost so much weight that she had become nothing more than a skeleton, a layer of thin skin the only thing holding her together. He could see each and every knob on her back that poked out from under the ragged wounds. What wasn't red or white was a horrid shade of purple or yellow-ish green, the bruises that were in various stages of healing. Long, skinny ones shouted at him from her hipbone, and he shuddered.

As he took a step closer, her body curled even further into itself. He sank into a squat behind her, extending a tentative hand that shook as much as she did.

He laid his palm on her shoulder, and she recoiled as if he had smacked her. She retched and he pulled back, eyes wide. Perhaps she thought he was Saleem.

"Ziva?" He tried to keep his voice as gentle as possible, harkening back to the days when they would tease each other across the bullpen. He reached out to her again, laying a hand oh-so-softly on a small bit of her back that was left unscarred.

And then she whimpered, a low, pathetic noise of terror and misery.

"_No,_" she moaned, the word barely audible as it fell from her slack mouth, "_please."_ Hearing her beg nearly shattered him in two. His stomach twisted and he almost fell over.

"Ziva, please, it's me, it's Tony…" The words dripped with the pain that had seized his heart.

"_Get the hell away from me."_ It sounded more like a broken, scared plea than a defiant demand, and it cut into him so much that he instantly withdrew his hand. Somewhere across the camp he heart gunshots.

"We have to get out of here, Ziva, come on…"

She moved then, slightly, hesitantly turning her frail body so she could see him, and for a moment he allowed himself to believe that once she saw him she would fall into his arms at let him carry her home. Instead, however, their eyes locked and she skittered backwards, looking like a caged animal as she tried to back as far away from him as possible, clutching a piece of fabric between her bony fingers. Her eyes frightened him—they were agonized and terrified and defeated, but so frighteningly clear. He reached out instinctively for her and grabbed her hand, and the sound of pain it tore from her throat made him draw back in horror.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I…" There were a few more gunshots. "Ziva, please, we need to go _now._"

He knew from the look of trapped terror in her eyes that he would regret this, but he straightened his knees and reached out to her, trying to pull her into his arms. She struggled against him, but backed up against the wall she had nowhere to go. Her skin was dry and cool compared to the temperature of the room. He wondered absently how much blood she had lost, and how close she was to dying of dehydration.

She was so fearfully light in his arms, and the way she shrank herself and trembled reminded him of a small, scared child. An inhuman sob tore itself, low and petrified, from her cracked mouth. He felt it in his chest.

Something had fallen to the ground when he picked her up, and with a quick glance he determined it to be a blood-soaked pair of cargo pants twisted into makeshift rope. At first he did not understand, but then he saw the hook on the wall and the loop in the fabric and the half-formed knot that looked so paralyzingly similar to a noose… He remembered the desperation with which she'd grasped that piece of cloth, and it came together with a resounding _click_ that shook him to the core.

Her breathing was speeding up, he noticed, and her eyes were darting wildly around the room, focusing on nothing. He could see her fading, and perhaps it was the panic or shock or just plain fear, but her body slowly began to still. Her eyes fell shut, and for a moment he was so, so afraid that he'd killed her again. But he could feel her lungs expanding, however shallowly, against his body, and he knew she had only blacked out. He was almost grateful.

He pushed out the door, trying to ignore so many things. Her feather-light body, the blood seeping onto his fingers from the wounds in his back that by holding her he was accidentally reopening… but most of all, it was the tiny, circular welts that accosted him every time he glanced down. They peppered her body, concentrated highly on her arms and stomach. There were a few on her small breasts, right next to the bite marks that he immediately connected to the finger-thin bruises on her thighs and hips, the lingering but familiar stench, and the revolting liquid seeping from between her naked thighs. It made him want to vomit, and he tried to look down at her as few times as possible. So many times in the last few years he had fantasized about seeing her body bare again, but not like this. Never like this. He averted his eyes, trying to give her the dignity and privacy he knew she deserved.

He had one arm under her knees and one under her shoulders, keeping her pulled into his torso. He managed to tuck her head into his chest, not wanting to leave it hanging over his arm. He did not want to jostle her too much, for fear of aggravating her injuries. In his left hand he clutched Saleem's gun, hoping to God that he would find McGee and Gibbs before any more terrorists found him. He had precious cargo, and did not know how he would fare in a firefight with Ziva in his arms.

He finally emerged from the dingy, stuffy building and into the beating desert sun, finding the camp as quiet as it was when they entered. This time, however, there were bodies littering the ground, and he knew that his team had taken care of it.

"Tony!" The sound carried on a sandy wind from the East, and he looked over to find McGee and Gibbs hopping out of the waiting jeep. It was peppered with bullet holes, but was still functional. As they approached, he could make out their horrified expressions as the looked from him to the ghostly woman in his arms. He answered their silent question.

"She's alive," he asserted as they got closer, "but only barely."

McGee blinked as they headed back toward the jeep, seemingly unable to tear his eyes from her abused body. Gibbs couldn't seem to look away, either.

"She doesn't look…" the younger agent began, brow furrowed in concern.

Tony pulled her closer to him, still mindful of her injuries, but wanting to shield her as much as possible from their concerned but prying stares. He knew she would not want them to see her in such a vulnerable state.

He knew what McGee meant, of course. He had seen plenty of corpses that looked like pictures of health compared to how Ziva looked that day.

"She _is_," Tony promised as he approached the vehicle, "but she really needs a hospital."

He managed to skillfully maneuver the two of them into the backseat of the jeep, and soon they had taken off back over the bumpy terrain. Tony had to pull Ziva even tighter to him to keep her from being jostled by the rough desert road. He was so painfully aware of her nakedness, and for a brief moment he considered giving her his shirt, but while it would be very large on her, it would still be difficult to manipulate her into it. It would be better to wrap her.

"You got a jacket, Boss?" he called up to the man in the passenger seat with a satellite phone to his ear. Gibbs nodded, taking off the button-up military coat he'd worn under the sniper camouflage.

Tony lifted her slightly off his lap, wrapping the jacket around her limp and skeletal frame. It was long enough that it covered to mid-thigh, and once he did up the buttons it seemed to swallow the rest of her body whole. Only her head peaked out of the top, which he supported at the back like a baby's. Satisfied, he positioned her back with his arms around her torso and laid her head onto his chest. He was grateful that he no longer had to feel her shredded skin under his fingers.

They rode in a pensive silence that was interrupted only by Gibbs speaking into the phone. He was arranging their flight out of here, from what Tony could gather.

The drive to Mogadishu would be a long one, so he sat back and tried his hardest to relax. He used her breathing, however shallow it was, to ground him, remind him that only a day ago he'd come here expecting to avenge her death and leave in a body bag.

And yet here they were, against all odds, both of their aching hearts beating in tandem. It was more than he knew he deserved, but perhaps, just this once, the universe was looking kindly on them.

**. . .**

They got on a C130 in the capital, much to Tony's chagrin. It wasn't his comfort he was worried for, however, but Ziva's. There was certainly no good place to lay a torture-weakened woman in plane meant mainly for cargo, so he decided swiftly on keeping her in his arms. He had not let go of her since he pulled to his chest in that stuffy cell and she blacked out in his arms, and he had no reason to stop now. She needed him, and he was not about to let there be one more moment where she had to suffer alone. A fierce sense of responsibility had overcome him, and no one dared suggest he put her down.

He spent the interminable flight trying not to stare at her, but he failed quite frequently. At times, he stared for what felt like hours at her thin and sunken face. It, like the rest of her body, was a terrible combination of pallid skin, red cuts, and yellowing bruises. The bags under her eyes were so dark they were practically black, and her sunken cheekbones spoke clearly of months of malnutrition. Her lips were dry and cracked, with cuts that had barely started healing. Further down, her legs stuck like twigs out from the coat, atrophied away to practically nothing. Her knees were knobby and scratched and to Tony, she looked so like an emaciated child on a TV commercial. Every now and then he noticed Gibbs and McGee staring at her blankly across the plane. No one said a word.

He shivered and ran his fingers through Ziva's hair, trying to brush out three months' worth of knots and blood and God only knew what else. It was uneven and cut shorter in places and very, very tangled, and eventually he gave up and simply contented himself with running a hand down her head. He wondered if she could feel his touch, wherever her mind was. He hoped she could. He hoped she knew she was safe.

She did not awaken on the flight home, and Tony was secretly grateful. Even in those long hours of silence, staring at her beaten and broken body, he was not able to think of what to say to her. There was so much between them, and he didn't know where to start. He no longer blamed her for her actions—every ounce of anger he had directed at her father—and with the exception of not dragging her onto that plane with him he did not regret his own. He'd had the time to rationally sift through the events of the past few months, to evaluate blame and work out from Gibbs what had really transpired behind the scenes. He hoped that Ziva had managed to do the same in the past few months, but what conclusion she had reached was in the air. He hoped that when she woke, he could help her straighten it all out, and then she would forgive him.

Her terrified but clear eyes flashed in his memory, and a sinister voice in the back of his head whispered _I'm not so sure._

**. . .**

There was an ambulance waiting the second the plane touched down in DC, and Tony refused to let it leave without him. He knew she would be taken from him at the hospital, and he wanted to be close for as long as possible in case she woke up. When she finally opened her eyes, he did not want her to be alone. Since he'd been injected with Saleem's mystery serum, it wasn't hard to get him a ride on the ambulance. He too would be admitted when they got to the hospital, but it was a small price to pay.

He had not let go of her in almost twenty hours, so when they pulled her from his arms to lay her down on the gurney he felt the absence like a gaping hole. She lay there limp as the EMTs worked around her, taking stock of her injuries to assure nothing was life threatening. He hated how small and vulnerable she looked.

At the hospital, she disappeared on a stretcher through swinging metal doors, and he himself was ushered into a room where they stuck a needle in his arm and tethered him to an IV pole, hoping to flush his body of whatever drugs Saleem had pumped him full of. He was a jittering ball of nerves, unable to get his mind off of the broken woman with the wild eyes that was somewhere in the building being poked and prodded and examined by strangers with latex gloves and glinting metal instruments. They meant no harm, and it was surely a necessary evil, but he wanted so badly to hold her like he had on the flight home and coax every ounce of fear and suffering from her beaten body.

He asked to see her many times, and every time they would tell him she was still being treated. Gibbs appeared in the doorway not long after he got settled, and Tony implored him to figure out what was happening, only for his boss to return with a cup of coffee and echoing the same, vague excuse. Still being treated.

It was hours later that a doctor in a pristine white coat entered the room. He had a nametag that read Dr. Sellers and was holding a clipboard, which he referenced frequently as he began to rattle off a list of Ziva's injuries to the two men. As the list stretched on, Tony almost wished he had not asked.

"Miss David has endured quite a bit of trauma," the doctor began, butchering the pronunciation of her last name, but in his anxiety Tony hardly noticed. "We had to stitch up quite a few cuts. The bigger wounds, like the burns and the welts on her back, we cleaned and bandaged. We took some blood samples, as infection is always a concern. She had a good number of broken bones, as well. Some were old breaks that have since healed, like her right foot, and some were just minor fractures. Her hands, though…" the doctor sighed. "It looks like each finger was systematically broken, most likely more than once. Many of them were never set correctly, so we had to re-break them so they would heal properly."

Through the dizzying sea of words, Tony remembered how she had cried out when he tried to grab her hand back in the cell. He felt sick.

"She has a few cracked ribs, which we've taped up," the doctor continued. "We also found evidence of very recent sexual assault. She's twenty pounds underweight and severely dehydrated, which is obviously concerning. We inserted an IV to start administering fluids and nutrients." He paused then, looking up from his clipboard and taking in the stony, horrified faces of the two men in front of him. "You'll be glad to know that at least physically, there is no permanent damage. She'll have a lot of scar tissue, but I believe she will make a full recovery."

"And emotionally?" Tony prodded.

"Pardon?"

"You said she'd be fine physically. What about emotionally?"

The doctor pursed his lips, taking a breath. "That remains to be seen. If I can be frank, Agent DiNozzo—she's been through hell. Don't expect her to be okay immediately. I suspect there will be a long transition period, and most likely some post-traumatic stress. We've assigned a psychiatrist to her case who'll do an evaluation of her when she wakes up. We sedated her, but she's in a room now and should wake up in an hour or so. Your IV's about finished. Would you like to see her?" Tony did not need to be persuaded. His answer came out breathy and relieved.

"Yes."

**. . .**

The midday sun streamed through the window and fell upon her still body. She was swathed in blankets, the fabric so clean and white in contrast to her grimy skin. The nurses had sponged her off the best they could, but after so many months living in filth, the dirt clung. Her collarbone protruded from behind the light blue wraparound gown that covered most of her torso, and her broken hands were encased in plaster that ended at her wrists and morphed into white bandages. What little skin he could see was discolored in finger-shaped bruises. On the other side of the bed, an IV needle was stuck in a patch of exposed skin. His stomach turned, and he could feel bile rising in his throat.

Back in Somalia, when he opened the door to that cell and found her crumpled against the wall, he had been running off of pure adrenaline. His horror at her ghastly physical state was eclipsed, if only barely, by the exhilaration of finding her alive. But now, having had time to process that she wasn't a pile of bones at the bottom of the Red Sea, he could look at the situation with clear eyes, and what he found was a bandaged corpse. The shallow movement of her chest was the only thing that made her look alive.

He wanted so badly to gather her back in her arms and cradle her like he had on the plane. But she looked so terribly fragile now, as if any touch could shatter each and every one of her aching bones and turn her to dust or pulverized desert sand. She was untouchable now, buried in a mass of gauze and cloth and stiches. He reached out and laid his hands on a small strip of un-bandaged forearm. Her skin was surprisingly hot, almost feverish.

The nurses and Gibbs left him alone with her then, promising that she would wake up within the hour. Their words sent a little shock of anxiety. He almost preferred that she continued to sleep—he still did not know what he was going to say to her. After everything she'd been through in their separation, he had no idea where they stood.

Eventually, once the sunlight from the window had passed across the bed and onto the floor, Ziva began to stir. The movement was barely perceptible, but with his hands laid gently on her arm he noticed immediately. He sat up, breathing hitched and teeth clenched.

"Ziva?" he entreated in a soft, beckoning voice. "Can you hear me?"

Almost immediately, her breathing sped up and her eyes, still closed, twitched. Neither of these were good signs.

"It's okay, you're safe. You're home." He ran his hand over her arm in what was supposed to be a comforting, grounding gesture. Her eyes fluttered, but ultimately remained screwed shut.

"_Please_, no more_."_

The words formed barely audible on her lips, and he pulled back, gulping. She seemed no different than when he first touched her in the cell. The logical explanation was that she simply did not know where she was.

"Ziva, open your eyes. You're in DC, see? You're safe. It's just me, it's just Tony."

She did not open her eyes. Her head turned away from him and a tiny, pathetic whimper fell from her mouth. It felt like a slap across the face, and it only made him try harder. He reached up and gently placed his hand on the side of her head, smoothing her hair and illustrating with his feather-light touch that he meant no harm.

It did not translate.

Her eyes flicked open, wide and wild and so frighteningly clear. They fell almost immediately on the needle stuck in her right arm, and suddenly she was hyperventilating, gasping for air and trembling beneath his fingertips. He had the sense enough to pull back, stumbling stunned away from her bedside. It did not help matters. She was still in panic mode, struggling with the sheets and the tube in her arm and sending him fleeting, terrified glances.

"Please, Ziva," he begged as the IV pole came crashing down and the fluid bag burst. "No one's gonna hurt you, you're safe. I promise you, you're _safe._"

She did not hear a word. He reached out again despite himself, wanting so badly to comfort and soothe this terrified woman. She saw him move, and struggled harder.

"_No more, no more, no more…_" she moaned, beside herself with fear. He'd never seen her like this; hell, he never could have even _imagined_ her like this. She was always so calm, so stoic, even in the face of terrible danger or pain.

He wanted Saleem's head on a stick.

There was a rush of white lab coats and turquoise scrubs as hospital personnel filed in the room. He willingly let himself be pushed into the back corner of the room as they worked to calm her, but from her anguished and fearful cries he knew nothing was working. He wanted so badly to push past the nurses and pull her into his arms and hold her until she came back to reality, but his touch only seemed to make it worse and there was this terrible, nagging feeling in his gut that this _was_ her reality.

He looked over to find Gibbs standing in the doorway, a cup of crappy hospital coffee in his hand and a set, stony expression on his face. Tony knew his boss well enough to realize that inside, he was just as afraid as he was. The younger agent moved over to him, gaze distant.

"I need to get out of here."

"Tony…" The older man's voice was low; a warning.

"I'm not helping anything," Tony insisted. He moved past Gibbs but did not make it far outside the room. He leaned back against the exterior wall of her room with his eyes clenched shut as he tried to block out the sound of her hysteria on the other side of the drywall.

"_Keep him away from me!"_

"Who?" he heard the doctor ask.

"_Tony!"_

And he couldn't see her, but he could imagine the look on her face as she spat out his name like venom. Behind his closed lids he could see the way her features would scrunch up, lip would curl up in disgust, eyes would darken to the shade of coal. He shook. This was all he needed to hear. He straightened up and strode purposefully away from her room, trying to block out the fading sound of her frantic accusations.

He found himself in the waiting room, surrounded by ordinary looking people in ordinary looking chairs that could not possibly fathom his pain. He was not angry with Ziva for her fear—he could never be angry, not when he'd seen in her eyes the depths of her fear, and seen on her body the extent of her suffering. No, he was angry with Saleem, with Eli, with Rivkin, with Gibbs for letting this happen to her. He was angry at the universe, for taking this woman who deserved such great things in life and crushing her beneath its uncaring fist. But mostly he was angry with himself, because somehow this was his fault. It was him she was terrified of. Somehow, this was him.

This could not simply be about killing Rivkin.

Gibbs and the doctor appeared in the doorway not too long after, beckoning for him to join them in the hallway. He complied, walking on numb legs.

"There are some very interesting things happening in Miss David's brain," the doctor began, and Tony, already agitated, could not stop the scathing words that came next.

"The hell there are," he growled. Gibbs inclined an eyebrow at him, and Tony forced himself to take a breath.

"After talking with her," the doctor continued carefully, "I believe she is very…confused."

"She doesn't know where she is?"

"No, she understands that she's in DC."

Tony raised a skeptic eyebrow. "Then what's the problem?"

The doctor took a deep breath. "Agent DiNozzo, somehow, something is going on in her brain that is making her believe you were the one that hurt her."

"I did hurt her, Doc."

"No, I don't mean emotionally. She thinks you were there. In Somalia."

And ultimately, there was little to cushion that blow. He reeled back, as if physically assaulted.

"She…" he gulped, "she thinks _I_ did that to her?" He could hear her injuries playing back in his head, like a laundry list of his crimes. Bones, systematically broken. Cigarette burns, whip lashes, starved. Raped. He remembered the noose, and a terrible noise found its way up his throat. "_All_ of that?"

"I believe so."

Tony did not need to hear any more. Gibbs tried to say something, but he held up his hand to stop what would surely have been meaningless, pitying reassurance.

"Save it," he rasped, shaking his head. "I need some air."

He made his way to the hospital gardens in a stupor, unable to see past the pain of her hatred. This was unprecedented. Never in his wildest imagination could he have foreseen this turn of events, and he didn't have a clue how to make it right.

She was dead and then she wasn't, but this undoubtedly hurt more than losing her ever had.

Gibbs followed him, of course, despite Tony's clear desire to be alone. He found him on a stone bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and hands on his head.

"DiNozzo."

"Go away."

"Moping isn't gonna fix this."

Tony looked up, fixing his boss with a glare that he did not fully deserve. "Well I'd sure as hell like to know what will, then," he spat.

"You're angry."

"Damn right I'm angry!" Tony yelled, springing from the bench to come face to face with the older man. People across the otherwise peaceful garden were staring.

"We're gonna set this straight, Tony." Gibbs rarely used his first name.

Tony took a shaky breath. "I don't know how to help her, Boss. I don't know if I can."

"She knows, somewhere, that you didn't do this. She's safe now. Maybe she'll remember."

"You didn't see how she looked at me." His voice was near a whisper, and his tense shoulders slumped. "You didn't see the… the _fear…_"

"You didn't hurt her, Tony. This is Ulman's fault, not yours." Gibbs seemed to have said all he needed to, so with a pat on the back he left his senior agent alone with his thoughts. Tony was grateful. He did not want to talk, not to anyone but her, and that was looking increasingly unlikely.

He needed to hear it from her mouth. Maybe it was masochistic, but he needed to hear her say it. _You did this to me, Tony. _

The anger was melting away with every passing second that he thought about her, and in its place it left piercing sadness. Even sitting in that tranquil garden, surrounded by chirping birds and colorful plant life, he could not get out of his head the image of her cowering against the cell wall, clutching the noose and looking at him with an expression of pure, unadulterated horror. He knew what she'd been seeing, now. She'd been seeing the man who stood over her with knives and whips and clubs and, over a series of months, visited every imaginable horror on her body. She'd been seeing the man who had violated her, taken from her something that was lovely and sacred in a whirlwind of forceful lust; the man who had broken her, driven her to a desperate attempt at suicide. She'd been seeing _him._

Everything he blamed Saleem for, she thought he had done to her.

He buried his face in his hands once again and wept.

**. . .**

He should not have returned to her room. He'd gone home, showered, eaten, and slept—although he was admittedly unsuccessful at the last two. He did not plan to return to the hospital, let alone to her room, but it seemed wrong to be anywhere else when she was in so much pain. He couldn't see her, and he knew that, so he decided that standing against the wall in the hallway had to be enough. And for a while, it was.

But then she woke up from sedation, and all hell broke loose.

He had no intention of going in. He knew it was a bad idea whichever way he looked at it. He had not, however, expected to have to stand there as she woke alone and the panic set it. He was not prepared to listen, immobile, to her cries and whimpers of fear, to the dull but manic thuds and she struggled against what could only be restraints.

It was that last thought that broke his resolve to stay away, because anger coursed red-hot through his veins at the thought of her being tied down. Bile rose in his throat, and suddenly he was moving.

The second she saw him in the doorway, her frantic attempts to get free compounded. She was struggling with more strength than he thought she could possibly possess, pulling at the leather straps binding her forearms and ankles to the bed. Her crazed, bloodshot eyes darted between him and the needle that was back in her arm, and that no matter how hard she tried she could not dislodge. A low, keening whine erupted from her gasping mouth.

He stood in the doorway, paralyzed. He'd run in on instinct, wanting to free her from her bonds, but upon seeing her struggling like a woman possessed he hesitated. If freed, he wasn't sure that she wouldn't be a threat to herself or to others. To him.

A nurse came running through the door, pushing past him.

"You need to leave, Agent DiNozzo. At least until we better understand her triggers." Tony's blood boiled.

"Well it's safe to say that having her arms and legs _bound to the bed_ is a trigger, don't you think?!"

"You need to leave," she repeated, her patience obviously wearing thin.

"And you need to untie her! Don't you have _any idea_ what she's been through?!"

"I'll untie her once you leave. She's not going to calm down as long as you're here."

Tony knew she was right. He stared at her for a long moment before stumbling backwards into the hallway. His fiery longing to take her in his arms mixed with his fear at seeing her in this state, and the result was a peculiar, blazing brand of helplessness that made him weak at the knees and caused him to collapse against the wall just outside her room. From there he could still hear her feverish struggling, the nurse's empty reassurances, and her unaffected noises of terror. His head pounded.

"_Keep him away from me,"_ he heard her plead.

"Agent DiNozzo isn't going to hurt you. Everyone is here to help you."

"No," she begged, still distraught. Her voice was thin and hoarse. "I need to get out of here! He did this!"

"Ziva, please, you need to calm down."

"He did this. He did this. _He did this_." She recited the phrase like a mantra, each repetition a blow driving the stake of helplessness and guilt further and further into his heart.

_I did this._

**. . .**

They had Ziva evaluated by a psychiatrist, or at least that's what Tony was told. He spent the day in the lobby, stewing in his worry, and keeping as much distance between himself and his supposed victim as possible.

The psychiatrist, a woman named Dr. Herron, called a meeting once she was done. Ducky, Gibbs, Tony, Dr. Sellers, and herself crowded into her office to discuss the woman they were all, in their own special ways, charged with caring for.

"First off, the results from Miss David's blood tests came back," Dr. Sellers began. "She's got an infection, which we suspected, so I'm going to put her on some intravenous antibiotics to clear it up. It should take about ten days, but I'm foreseeing administering it to be the hard part, given her negative reactions to the IV." He shuffles a few papers. "Which brings me to the second part. The tox-screen showed the presence of some pretty nasty stuff in her system. These chemicals," he pointed to a few very long words on a chart, "are all things that target and exploit the fear center of the brain. And these," his finger moved down the page, "are all known to cause extremely vivid hallucinations, among other things. I think this is the key to understanding what is going on in Miss David's brain."

"It makes sense," Tony began, almost without thinking. Every head in the room turned to him. "Saleem majored in chemical engineering. He injected me with truth serum to get me to talk, who's to say he didn't use nastier stuff on her?" His voice was monotone, frighteningly logical. "When he mentioned her, he looked at his syringe. And how afraid she is of the IV…"

"He was drugging her," Gibbs concluded.

"Very severely, I'm afraid. And for what was probably a long time, for it to have such adverse effects," Dr. Sellers informed them.

"So that's where I come in," Dr. Herron began, leaning forward and folding her hands on her desk. "With your permission, I'm going to have Ziva transferred to the psych ward."

Tony's hands balled into fists. "She's not insane," he insisted.

"I'm not saying she is. But physically, beside the antibiotics, there is nothing more we need to do for her. Her body will heal, with time. Her mind, however… she's going to need help."

"Post-traumatic stress disorder?" Ducky wondered.

The doctor nodded. "Among other things, probably. We are dealing with a very… interesting case here." Tony scoffed at her word choice. "I've never seen anything like this before. But I don't see why she can't make a full recovery. We'll have to tread carefully, but I don't think this is in any way unfixable."

They moved her to the psych ward that evening. Not wanting to restrain her but needing to administer the antibiotics, the doctors had decided to sedate her at night. The extra sleep would help her body heal, as well as give them time to get her the medicine and nutrients she so badly needed.

Knowing she was asleep, he snuck into her new room that night before visiting hours ended. The moonlight cast a ghoulish glow on her gaunt face, and for a moment he could not bear to go any closer. It felt wrong, being here while she slept, but he needed to see her before he left.

He wanted to go to her side, to kiss her warm forehead and smooth her ragged curls. He wanted to pull her into his arms and not let go until she understood that he could never have done this, would never have done this. But he didn't do any of it, because he had too much respect for her and her wishes. He knew that if she woke and discovered he had been so close while she slept, she would be nothing but disgusted and terrified.

He cast a final, longing glance at the shorn woman lying helpless on the bed, before walking out of the room, the ward, the hospital. He drove home in a stupor and collapsed on his bed, lulled to sleep by the heavy beating of his leaden heart.

**. . .**

She hated how white it was. White walls, white sheets, white floor and ceiling grid and lights. Its cleanliness mocked her.

This new environment stood in stark contrast to the cell she had spent the last few months in. She did not like it. She did not like the soft bed, the downy pillows, or the clean wraparound gown. She did not even like the noticeable lack of pain. All of these things were strange, so different from the naked filth and constant agony of the past three months. The change put her on edge, and she was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop—for the serum to wear off and for the stuffy, fetid cell to take shape once again around her.

She did not remember getting here. She did not remember a rescue, a plane, or an ambulance. All of these things screamed hallucination as the logical answer. There was only a very small part of her that truly believed she was in DC.

There was no longer any fire in her veins, no syringes and clear fluid, but she still spent almost every waking hour in fear. Every footstep in the hall made her tremble and she could find no way to stop the terror that had seeped into every nook and cranny of her body.

She had been moved, she knew that much, but to her it did not matter. There were different nurses, but they all wore the same blue outfits and asked the same questions with the same fake smiles and the same condescending terms of endearment—notably, _sweetie_ and _hon_ which made her bristle in annoyance. She did not trust them. Every now and then, one would enter her room and wedge a cup of water between her casted hands, requesting that she drink. Despite her sandpaper tongue and parched throat, she would not comply. The cool liquid would slosh around untouched in the cup that she held with her unsteady, plaster-covered hands, and she would study it with a dubious glare. It was too clear, too cool to be water. For the past few months, water had been a brown-tinted, warm liquid poured in her mouth from a dirty canteen. The substance in the glass resembled much more closely a terrible, clear liquid that spurted from the tip of a syringe.

She did not trust it.

The nurses always asked her questions about her pain, telling her to describe where it hurt or what it felt like or to rate it on a scale of one to ten. Compared to how she had felt in Somalia, she could not justify saying it was more than a one. She rarely answered the questions, however, as she was unable to discern their motives. To her, it could not be as simple as them wanting to help.

She did not see any familiar faces for a few days, but it did not ease her nerves. Remembering back to the first few times she woke up, she knew that Tony knew she was here. He was likely somewhere in the building, buying his time. She'd seen him talking to nurses and to her doctors, and it only increased her distrust of the seemingly well-intentioned hospital staff. They no longer tied her to the bed, but the door was almost always shut, and she knew that if she'd had the strength to get up and test it, she would find it locked. She was as much a prisoner here as she had been in Somalia.

She had to keep reminding herself that this was all just a ploy—that even _if_ this was not a wild, unprecedented hallucination, she was still not safe. This was not a rescue, it was simply another way for Tony to hurt her.

So she resisted, in every way she could. She did not eat the food they offered her, didn't touch the water, did not turn on the TV. She spent her days in a paranoid, nervous stupor. The only thing she complied to was taking the small, unassuming pill the night nurse brought, insisting that it would help her sleep. The nurse would refuse to leave until she swallowed the tablet, and eventually she caved solely to be left alone. It would only take minutes for sleep to begin to tug on her, and though she always resisted, afraid of being unconscious and letting her guard down, the encroaching black always won. Still, so unlike the serum, it brought with it a sense of tranquility that she did not altogether mind.

It was the third day in the new room that Gibbs appeared in the doorway, and upon seeing the familiar steely eyes and shock of gray hair her heart rate doubled.

"You feelin' any better?"

She pressed herself father back toward the headboard and away from his approaching figure. She hardly heard the words.

"Why are you here?" she rasped, eyeing him with growing unease. He noticed and stopped his advancement at the foot of her bed.

"Worried about you, Ziver," he answered, cocking his head to the side. "We all are."

"That is…" she coughed, throat dry, "…rich."

"Ziva," he implored, trying to hold her gaze. "No one here wants to hurt you."

And oh, how she wished she could believe that. But although he had never physically harmed her, Gibbs had been there, too, in Somalia. She knew for a fact that he'd been an accomplice of Tony's in the whole Rivkin affair. It was not so hard to believe he was in on Tony's torture, as well.

"You gonna tell me what's goin' on in your head?" he asked as she continued to stare at him with a mix of apprehension and distrust. The seconds ticked by on the clock on the wall, counting her long silence. Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "You want me to leave?"

She gave a minute nod, and he blinked, but accepted her choice. He disappeared, visibly discouraged, through the door, leaving her alone once again.

It took hours for her to stop shaking.

**. . .**

The next day it was not Gibbs that appeared in the doorway but Ducky. And the old doctor had never appeared in Somalia, so she was nowhere near as fearful of him as she was of Gibbs, even if she did not totally trust him. Still, she associated him in her mind with NCIS and therefore Tony, so she kept him at arm's length, attempting to maintain her self-imposed silence that had become near habit after enduring so many months of torture aimed at getting her to speak.

"You know, I worked for many years in Afghanistan, with prisoners of war. I saw a great deal of the effects that torture can have on the human body," he began, sitting down in a chair by the window. "I'd hoped never to have to see such terrible things happen to a loved one, such as yourself. And yet, here we are." He shook his head, a look of deep sympathy on his face. "I am sorry, Ziva."

"You have nothing… to be sorry for," she croaked out, voice dry. Her words were a sort of test, to see how he would respond, because she was not entirely certain that he was completely absolved from guilt. After Tony's betrayal, no one was above suspicion.

Ducky noticed the rasp in her throat and stood, pouring her yet another glass of water. She recoiled at the sudden movement, and he must have noticed, because from then on every motion was slow and calculated. He handed her the cup and she accepted it with her casted hands, not intending to drink it.

"If there is anyone who deserves to live a happy life, it is you, Ziva."

Those words struck her as strange. "That is not true."

"Believe what you want, but I, for one, do not think you deserved this."

He spent most of their time together rambling off stories, some of which she was familiar with and some she wasn't. The anecdotes brought a strange sense of calm over her, distracting from the uncertain, confusing world that was her reality. When he left hours later, she still had not touched the water, but her hands were steady.

McGee came the next day, bringing with him a bag full of paperback novels.

"Some of your favorites," he informed her, setting out titles such as _To Kill a Mockingbird_, _The Wizard of Oz,_ and _The Sound and the Fury. _Almost all of her belongings had perished in the explosion that incinerated her apartment, but as she turned the books over in her hands she recognized them as her own copies.

"How…?"

"They were in your desk when your apartment blew up. T—uh, _we_ saved them after you… well, you know."

She blinked. "You saved my things?"

"I think, uh…I think we all hoped you were coming back, Ziva."

She nodded. "I see." Usually she hated when people walked around her as if on eggshells, but in this case she appreciated it. His gentle voice soothed her nerves. "Thank you." She found it hard, despite his close relation to Tony, to be suspicious of this awkward, well-meaning man who in four years had never once hurt her.

When he left that day, she was calm once again. For a moment after, she allowed herself to wonder if they were not telling the truth, if she was not truly safe. She was not in any terrible amount of pain, and so far no one here had done anything to harm her. In fact, most of them had been downright kind.

But then she remembered waking to find Tony next to her, his large, crippling hands wrapped around her left arm, a needle stuck in her right, and instantly the fear rushed back with a vengeance.

**. . .**

He spent the next few days shut up in his apartment. He ordered take-out that he ate almost none of, watched movies that he paid almost no attention to, and plucked melodies from his piano that were hardly recognizable. There was not a second that went by that he did not think of her.

He turned off his phone, as well, so it was no surprise when, a few days later Gibbs pounded furiously on his door, invoking Rule #3.

"Where have you been?"

"Here," Tony replied honestly, inclining to his unkempt apartment with a hand that held a half-empty beer bottle.

"Why haven't you been at the hospital?"

"I didn't feel I was needed."

"Bull."

Tony was shaking then, shaking because how _dare_ Gibbs march in here and act like he knew what Tony was going through, what was best for him?

"I'm not going back there, so don't try to make me."

"And why's that?" Tony's lip curled up in a sneer, eyes wild.

"_Why?!_ She's laying there all broken and helpless and she thinks _I_ did it to her!" He shook his head, going to close the door in his boss's face. "I can't go back there." Gibbs reached out, keeping the door propped open.

"She needs you."

Tony scoffed. "Yeah, I'm sure she does, Gibbs. That's why she screams and cries whenever she sees me. Because she _needs me._"

"Would you quit your pity party for one _second_ and think about this logically?" Gibbs reprimanded. "The only way this is gonna get better is if she sees you're not the man she's imagining."

Tony shook his head vehemently. "Gibbs, this had to come from somewhere. Sure, they injected her with God-knows-what kind of crap, but there's a reason it was _me_ she imagined and not you or McGee."

"Well, yeah, Dinozzo. She feels a lot of emotions when it comes to you." Tony squirmed.

"Yeah, negative emotions."

"I don't believe that."

"She tackled me and put a gun to my chest last time we saw each other. She said she couldn't work with me. She would have preferred I let Michael kill me. There's no changing the fact that all this happened because she _already hated me_."

"She had no right to do and say those things," Gibbs admitted. "Somewhere, she knows that. She had to have had a lot of time to think about what happened—"

"Yeah, she did," Tony insisted. "And this is the conclusion she reached."

"She was being drugged and tortured, Tony." Gibbs's face was stern, and he delivered the line so bluntly that Tony was forced to give pause. He swallowed, shifting his weight.

"I just… I don't think I can be near her right now… knowing what she thinks I did."

"You're being selfish," was Gibbs's immediate response.

Tony's eyes widened. "How is this _selfish,_ Gibbs? Do you know how much I want to be with her? How much I wish I could just hold her and help her through this mess? But I can't. It wouldn't help her to have me so close."

"At some point, DiNozzo, she's gonna need you to be there. She's gonna need you to show her she was wrong. And you're gonna need to be the rock."

"Fine," Tony ceded, voice measured. "You let me know when that time comes, and I'll be there. But don't expect me to sit there outside of that goddamn room and listen to her…" his voice cracked, "…to her…screaming…knowing it's me she's afraid of."

Gibbs left after that, giving him only a rare nod of understanding before he let the door be shut on him. Tony, on the other hand, was shaking, the beer sloshing around in its bottle. He wanted so badly to throw it at the wall, to watch it shatter against the drywall, to watch the numbing liquid trickle and pool on the floor. But he didn't. Instead he downed the rest of the alcohol in one gulp, sat the empty bottle next to four others just like it, and lost himself in the memory of how they used to be.


	3. Chapter 3

**. . .  
**

**Part III**

**. . .**

He couldn't stay away any longer. Looking around at his unkempt apartment and in the mirror at his own disheveled, tired appearance, it was clear that this was not the best solution for him. That, at least, had been obvious from the start, but he had not cared because he assumed staying away would help Ziva heal. He had spent the past four days shoving away any thought of her, but his boss's visit forced him to realize that staying completely away might not be the best solution for either one of them.

So the next night, without telling anyone, he hopped in the car and drove to the hospital. Visiting hours were long over, but the nurses recognized him and let him through once he promised not to disturb their patient.

He sat with her all night, forgoing sleep in favor of watching over her. She looked better than she had the last time he saw her. What a difference five days could make. She still looked frighteningly like a skeleton swathed in bandages and cotton sheets, but her face was a bit fuller, the bruises a little less pronounced. It gave him the slightest bit of hope, because if her body could heal, why not her mind?

He kept vigil at her bedside all night, but he did not touch her once. Knowing what she thought he'd done, it felt like a gross invasion of privacy to do something while she slept that she would never allow if she were conscious. True, if she were conscious she would not let him anywhere near her, but he needed this for his own sanity. He needed to watch her heal, dammit, even if that meant stealing in here in secret and never seeing her with her eyes open. After so long of thinking her dead, he needed to see her breathing.

And more than anything, he needed to get that terrible image of her when he found her, naked and bleeding and so close to death, out of the forefront of his mind.

He left just as the sun began to peek over the city rooftops outside the window. On the way out, much to his chagrin, he ran into Gibbs, who looked thoroughly surprised to see his senior agent.

"You comin' back?" Gibbs asked with a raised eyebrow. Tony just nodded in response, and the two men went on their separate ways.

**. . .**

It was only after a few days of Ducky and McGee's visits that Gibbs tried again. She understood the tactic immediately, but she could not honestly say that it didn't work. Upon seeing him in the doorway, the shock of fear was greatly lessened from what she had felt days earlier. She still backed against the wall, and her muscles still tensed, but what she felt was more apprehension and uncertainty than downright fear. Despite her attempts to keep it up, her guard was slowly dropping every day that she did not see or hear mention of Tony.

Gibbs sat down in a chair by the window, as silent as she was. It unnerved her, made her fidget on the mattress, and her mind began to reel with the possibilities as she tried to uncover his angle.

Minutes went by, measured by the clock on the wall's soft _tick, tock_s, that with every second seemed to get louder and louder in the quiet room. She could hear her own heartbeat, her irregular breaths compared to his even ones. Each moment that passed in silence made the room stuffier with discomfort, and the atmosphere gradually became more and more pressurized until finally, after what felt like hours, it popped.

"What do you want from me?" she demanded to know in a voice that to her seemed like a shout, but was likely much softer.

Gibbs looked over, seemingly surprised at her outburst. "We don't want anything." Her eyes narrowed, tugging at the cut on the corner of her brow.

"Everybody wants _something_." If there was anything she had learned in the past few months it was this.

"We want you to get better."

She sucked in a breath, shaking her had slowly without tearing her wide eyes from his.

He quirked an eyebrow. "You doubt that?" She ground her teeth together.

"Why should I believe you?"

He blinked, visibly taken aback. It took him a moment to decide how to respond.

"We care about you, Ziver," he promised. "We're your friends. I'm on your side."

She shook her head once again, pursing her lips. "No," she answered, voice wavering. "No."

"No?"

"No!" she practically yelled, and if he was startled he didn't show it. "Friends do not… do _this,_ to one another!" She gestured wildly with bandaged hands at her crippled, tortured body.

"_Ziva,_" he began in a near whisper, face exhibiting more emotion than Ziva remembered ever seeing. "We would never hurt you."

"That is a lie."

"We didn't do this—"

"_Stop lying!_" she screeched, sitting forward so violently that pain ripped through her back. "I know what happened!"

"Ziva, I didn't—" he tried, but she continued, enraged, throat aching from the sudden overuse.

"But you helped him! You helped cover up Rivkin's murder, you made sure I stayed in Israel where I would be sent on that mission! You made sure I was delivered right to him!"

"I never—"

"_You_ never!" she shrieked, eyes bulging. "_You_ never shoved a cattle prod into my stomach! _You_ never hung me from my wrists from the goddamn _ceiling_ and whipped me until every. Single. _Inch_ of my body was covered in blood! _You_ never water boarded me or snapped my fingers one by one! _You_ never ra—" She cut off with a gargle, choking on the words. Her eyes were red and swimming. "But _Tony_ did," she finished, sneering.

"Ziva," he pleaded, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "Tony would never—"

"Don't you _dare!_ Don't you dare sit there and defend him! I was there, for _all of it._ Every. Single. Agonizing. _Second!_"

For a moment after her wild, screaming accusation fell away, the room was enveloped once again in silence interrupted only by her heavy, furious panting.

"Ziva," he implored, fixing her with his no-nonsense gaze, "I know you're hurting, and confused, and scared. I know nothing makes sense right now. But please, even if you don't remember anything else, remember this—it's over. You're safe now."

She shook her head, lip quavering. "I do not believe you," she responded in a voice to break his heart. He took a deep breath, nodding.

"Yeah, I know. It's gonna take time. But eventually you'll realize that all anyone here wants is for you to be happy and healthy again." He stood then and, giving her a final, sad look, disappeared through the doorway.

She was left shaking once again, but feeling strangely better than before. Perhaps she had needed to get some of this pent up anger and suffering out of her system. It had felt good to yell, and she felt unusually empowered.

Gibbs's vigorous insistence of her safety had made her want more than ever to believe him, and there was an ever-growing part of her that did. However, the image of Tony standing over her with a bloody knife and sick grin could not be shaken, and as long as it was there she could not allow herself to truly believe that this was anything more than a particularly sadistic trick.

She collapsed back against the bed, exhausted and aching, for once wanting nothing more than that detested nighttime pill and the certain peace it brought.

**. . .**

She had many visitors during the next few days. McGee came in the mornings with a hard-bound book in hand, his newest novel that had been published over the summer.

"You told me that when it came out you wanted to read it, remember?"

She didn't remember, but she nodded anyway and listened when he sat down by the window, opened to the front page, and began to read. The rhythmic cadence of his light voice soothed her frayed nerves, and over the course of those few days she came to appreciate the time he spent with her. Appreciation was a passive emotion, one that did not take a lot of effort on her part, but the idea of anything in her life being _passive_ was and welcome, albeit foreign, after the past few months.

Gradually, so slowly that she did not notice, her perpetual feeling of unease began to abate. She began to speak more, and even would, on occasion, let her guard fall for a few moments. It would, however, snap back into place the second she noticed, and she would promise herself that she would not be so careless again.

She rarely listened closely to the story. The subject matter made her uncomfortable, as it was a perfect picture of what her life had been before bloodshed and betrayal turned it all on its head. Perhaps this was part of their agenda, a subtler way to convince her of who she could supposedly trust. But occasionally, McGee would flip multiple pages at once, his eyes skimming the words before picking back up somewhere seemingly innocuous, and she eventually realized that he was skipping each and every mention of Agent Tommy. She was grateful, but also puzzled, because if they really wanted to play with her, Tony's character would not have been omitted.

She had begun to notice that the little things in the behavior of those around her were making increasingly less sense. She seemed incapable of following a straight line of logic, and it frustrated her to no end that she could not divine the intentions of these people who she used to understand so well. Very few things made sense since her world had been turned on its head. In a world where a trusted partner, ex-lover, and friend could carve the skin from her bones with a smile, she had come to accept that nothing was impossible. The world did not owe it to her to make sense, so she stopped trying to predict or anticipate. She learned, the hard way, that only person she could trust was herself.

When McGee left and she was alone, she would often pick up the well-worn softback novels he had brought. The pages felt familiar and comfortable. She spent hours reading, although still not paying any attention to the meaning of the words. She found it hard to be engaged in little Scout's childish struggles when she had so many of her own weighing heavily on her mind. This very thing, however, that kept her from appreciating the stories as she once did was the reason she picked up the books in the first place. The memory of the pain and the fear of it returning were never far away. She spent those hours trying to distract herself, to hide from her own poisoned mind. She translated paragraphs in her head into Hebrew, then from Hebrew into Spanish or Italian or French. It kept her busy, at least until the next visitor would appear in the door.

Ducky showed up on the first of those few days with a vase and a colorful bouquet of flowers. He laid the bundle at her feet and went to the adjoining bathroom to fill the vase with water, then with great care placed them inside and put the colorful ensemble on her windowsill. It brightened the dreary room considerably, and Ziva realized with a pang that it was the first beautiful thing she had seen in months. She felt the strange, unwelcome desire to weep.

She held in the tears as she had been trained to do and listened halfheartedly as the old Scottish man launched into a story about a flower garden his mother had cultivated when he was a young boy. He was content to ramble on while she sat in silence, and once again there was that passive, simple emotion of appreciation. His good-natured smile and light, impossible-sounding stories made her forget, if only for a moment, this confusing, wretched, and deceptive life she was living, and lose herself in the imagination.

After Ducky, as the sun moved closer to the horizon, there was the psychiatrist. Dr. Herron, she'd introduced herself as. Ziva had never liked psychiatrists, and after three months of mind games her distaste had only compounded. She did not know this woman, and she did not trust her—not to say she trusted any more those she did know. So when the doctor asked questions, Ziva, so accustomed to resisting efforts to get her to talk, stayed silent.

The first few days they got nowhere, as was to be expected given Ziva's intentional lack of cooperation. The questions rolled off her, unaddressed.

"How are you feeling, Ziva?" the doctor would always start, speaking as if they were lifelong friends.

_Confused. Anxious. Helpless. My ribs ache. _The patient said none of these things. She simply sat there and stared blankly into space, trying to ignore the memories of past interrogations that the doctor's questions brought up.

These seemingly endless sessions went on for three days. On the fourth, the doctor decided she'd had enough. Ziva could sense the change in her demeanor the second she walked through the door and it sent alarm bells going off in her head. She was familiar with what happened when interrogators got impatient. The wounds on her back throbbed.

"Ziva, I think it's time I level with you," Dr. Herron began, pulling a chair up to Ziva's bedside. The latter drew back, pressing herself back against the bed to counter this breaking of physical boundaries that had been respected by everyone but the nurses.

Ziva stared at her, obviously anxious. She pulled her hands away from the doctor and plaster met plaster in her lap.

"I know you don't trust anyone. First off, let me just say that I don't blame you for that. You've been through hell."

Ziva bristled. She hated when people said that, when they acted like they understood what she had endured. They didn't. No one possibly could.

"But I figure in order for you to accept the truth, someone's going to have to lay it all out for you. I don't expect you to believe me yet, okay? I just need you to listen and give me the benefit of the doubt," the doctor requested. Ziva blinked—who was this woman to patronize her like this? She swallowed what little moisture there was in her mouth and spoke to her doctor for the first time.

"And why should I do that?" Over a week since she entered this hospital, and her voice still sounded like Abby's when she returned from a concert. Of course, it was a different type of screaming, mixed with dehydration and followed by a long period of disuse, that had rendered hers hoarse and practically useless.

"Because, believe it or not, the only thing I want to do is help you."

Ziva didn't believe it, not really, but she let the woman continue anyway. Taking her patient's silence as a cue, Dr. Herron began.

"When your team brought you in, you were in pretty bad shape. I don't think I need to tell you that. Infection and certain other… diseases… were obviously a possibility. So we drew some blood and sent it in to be tested. And you know what they found? Traces of a whole lot of really nasty substances." The image of a syringe floated in front of Ziva's face and she cringed, absently rubbing the crook of her right arm once again with the rough plaster of her cast. "These chemicals were all known to cause either fear, hallucinations, hypervigilance, or increased sensory sensitivity."

Ziva did not like where this was going. She looked down at her lap, trying to keep the images of glinting metal needles at bay. She could feel a phantom burning in her veins. The doctor cocked her head to the side.

"How often did he inject you?"

Ziva's hands were shaking now. She ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth. "Once a day, in the beginning." Her voice was nearly inaudible. "Twice a day in the last month."

The doctor took a deep breath, straightening in her chair. "Wow."

One corner of Ziva's mouth pulled up in a morbid, sardonic smile. _Wow, indeed._

"Ziva, would you tell me who gave you these injections?"

"Saleem, at first," she admitted, haunted eyes staring unfocused at her useless hands. "But eventually… _he_ took over."

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "He… being Tony DiNozzo?" Ziva exhaled sharply at the use of his name. "What kind of effects did these injections have?"

"Fear," she answered lowly. "Lots of fear."

"Hallucinations?"

"At first."

Dr. Herron cocked her head to the side. "When did that change?"

She ground her teeth together. "When he took over." Her fingers ached, and she could almost hear his mocking voice throwing her own past sins in her face as he systematically snapped each and every finger like a twig. Along with it, she could hear her own sobbing pleas for mercy. The agony of his betrayal had been so fresh then.

"And the hallucinations just… stopped?"

Ziva bristled, disliking the doctor's tone. She nodded firmly.

"Would you agree that that's strange?"

In her time at NCIS, there were a few times when Ziva had to appear in court as a witness. This felt just like it, and she hated it.

"Where are you going with this?"

The doctor sighed, raising her eyebrows. "Ziva, have you stopped to consider that perhaps _Tony_ was the hallucination?" Ziva blinked, her breath hitching. She immediately went on the defensive.

"_No,"_ she insisted. "He was real. Look at my hands, at my back! Look at the burns!"

"I'm not saying your injuries aren't real, I'm saying Tony didn't do it."

Ziva shook. "I was there! I saw him! I remember his face better than I have remembered anything in my _life_," she fumed.

"Ziva, with that much drugs in your system, it's likely that Saleem was hurting you and the hallucinogens cause you to see Tony instead."

"But _why?!_ Why would I imagine Tony? It doesn't make sense!"

Dr. Herron quirked an eyebrow. "And him flying halfway across the world to torture you _does?"_

"I only know what I saw," Ziva forced out through gritted teeth.

"Ziva," the woman implored, looking up at her with eyes that begged understanding. "The only time in the last three months that Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo has left the country was eleven days ago, when he flew to Somalia for a covert reconnaissance mission. Every source I've checked with has backed this up."

Ziva looked up at her doctor, brow furrowed in surprise.

"You think I'd just accept the word of a stranger?" Dr. Herron asked. "You were so terrified of him, I needed to be sure. I promise I gave you the benefit of the doubt. But I've checked it out in every way I possibly, legally could, and Tony has been at work with the Major Case Response Unit for the past three months. Until last week, he hadn't left the country. This is the _truth_, Ziva."

Ziva stared, uncomprehending. No. Tony had been in Somalia. Tony had arranged for her to be captured. Tony had hired Saleem to torture her and when he got impatient, tortured her herself. Tony had beaten her, spat on her, taunted her, whipped her, raped her.

Tony had rescued her.

This last bit, the memory of his concerned, dirty face floating above her, his heart beating against her ear and his arms wrapped around her shoulders and under her knees… the memory of being lifted, carried, with gentle arms… it did not make sense. She had refused to remember it before, but now that it was there she could not expel it. In that moment, the first real seed of doubt was planted in her heart.

But it still was not enough. Ziva trembled.

"Why can I not believe you?" she strained, her choked words sounding desperately heartbroken.

"Ziva," the doctor sighed, sympathy etched in every feature, "you're _scared."_

Her eyes burned. "I do not want to be scared anymore," she forced out, voice wavering.

"I know," the doctor promised in a low voice. "I know. It will get better. I promise you it will get better."

Ziva let her head fall back onto the pillow. The bright hospital lights swam above her. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to keep at bay the hot tears of despair that were gathering so rapidly. One leaked out and cut a path down her flushed cheek.

"I do not know what to believe," she whispered through trembling, crumpled lips.

"Just know that you're safe. Everything else will come."

She heard the scrape of plastic against linoleum flooring, then the sound of fading footsteps and a gently closing door. For a while she laid there, overwhelmed, fiercely fighting her losing battle against the tears smoldering behind her eyelids.

She cried herself to sleep that night, scared and torn and so very, very lost.

**. . .**

His nights were spent at her side, keeping watch while she slept and the IV fluid _drip, drip, dripped_ into her arm. Sometimes he slept, but it was fitful and light and he always woke to an aching back. He would leave just before dawn, careful not to leave a trace.

Tony rarely saw his apartment in those days, returning home only as a brief pit stop to shower and change clothes. When he was not at the hospital, he was at work, burying himself in nightmarish paperwork that _someone_ had to sort out. His teammates, upon arriving and finding him silent and already hard at work, adopted expressions of pity that irked him to no end. He was not to be pitied.

He knew McGee and Ducky were talking to her, and it was all he could do to keep the festering questions from tumbling from his mouth. His partner would leave for lunch every day at the same time, always with a knowing nod from their boss and a glare from Tony. The senior agent knew very well that McGee did not deserve his animosity, but the jealousy and dejection were bone-chilling and refused to be ignored.

Tony never asked for details from either of the two men. There were times when he was extremely close, close enough that he got the first few words out, but ultimately the fear of what he might hear would outweigh the curiosity. It settled and silenced his desperate questions.

It was like this for four days, until Gibbs had enough. Tony was not sure exactly what made his boss send him home. Perhaps it was the dark bags under his eyes that grew more and more pronounced with every night he spent at the hospital. Or perhaps it was his somber, brooding manner, and the fact that he had started to snap any person that disturbed his self-flagellating internal monologue. She hated him, and because of that he'd started to hate himself a little, too; and Gibbs, in his typical fashion, noticed. He sent Tony home with an unwavering stare and told him not to come back until he'd had a decent night's sleep, or at least started taking care of himself, dammit.

The sun had already started to set when Tony began his exile. He could not help but resent his boss a bit for this, because one moment he was mad that Tony had shut himself in his apartment, and the next because he wasn't going home enough. But as Tony started the engine he already knew he was not going home. It was not necessarily to spite his boss; rather, because he'd left his home in a state of disrepair. Takeout containers piled in the trashcan, empty beer bottles scattered on almost every open surface, shades drawn.

No, Tony didn't go home that evening. Twenty minutes later, he was pulling into the hospital parking garage.

He made it all the way to the psych ward before remembering that he could not go in yet. She wasn't asleep. It had been over a week since he saw her with her eyes open, and a part of him must have forgotten that she was still capable of such a thing. He felt a resurgence of that misplaced bitterness toward Ducky and McGee, because they got to see her awake and talking while he, the one who arguably cared for her the most, was left to steal furtive, protective glances in the dead of night.

As he turned to head back to the elevator, planning to spend the next few hours waiting in the cafeteria, he saw Dr. Herron coming down the hallway. She recognized him and immediately came to his side.

"It's been a while since I've seen you here. How you holding up?"

"I'm… working on it," Tony responded, running a hand through his ruffled hair. "And yeah, I've been, uh, taking the nightshift." It was not quite so organized or purposeful as that, in reality. The doctor seemed to understand that, at least. She offered him a sympathetic smile.

"Needed to see her, huh?"

Tony barked a sardonic laugh, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I thought she was dead for a long time," he admitted. "I needed to see her alive, even if she wasn't… awake."

"Understandable," the doctor nodded, gesturing toward two chairs in the ward's waiting area. "I'd be happy to brief you on her recovery, if you'd like? I don't know how much your teammates have told you." Tony's eyes narrowed.

"They haven't told me anything," he responded as the pair sat down.

"They probably don't want you worrying about something you have no control over."

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me," he scoffed. He knew he was being difficult and sharp, but he was hurting. She patted his arm.

"Tony," she addressed with more patience than he deserved, "I think it's time."

His eyes widened. "Time for what?"

"For her to see you." Her words made his blood run cold.

"Already? I didn't think…"

"Our session today went well. She opened up to me a bit."

His heart leapt in both excitement and dread. "What did she say?"

"I can't tell you much," she informed him, "but I will say that I finally laid the truth out for her."

"But she doesn't believe it."

"No, but she wants to."

Tony felt the air whoosh out from his lungs. She did not want to hate him. It was the best news he'd gotten all week, and he almost didn't believe it.

"She… wants to?"

"Yes. And that's where you come in. I can tell her you're not going to hurt her until I'm blue in the face, but I believe the only way she will truly believe it is by seeing you herself."

"You really think we have a shot?" Tony asked, breathless.

"Of course I do. Now, I don't think she's just going to magically be okay. There's a lot of hurt and fear hiding under the surface right now. It might take a while, but this is the next step. Do you think you can do it?"

"Yes," he firmly insisted. "When?"

"Not tonight. She needs some time to process everything I told her, and plus I've got to fill her in beforehand. I'm not just going to drop you in there without her knowing you were coming first."

"Do you think she'll be okay with it?"

"I'll let you know. Unless I call and say otherwise, plan to be here around two tomorrow, okay? And in the mean time, go _home,_" she demanded. "Get some sleep. You look like crap." He couldn't find it in himself to be offended, knowing so well that it was the truth.

"Thanks," he offered, the one word carrying the weight of his gratitude for this opportunity. A forbidden seed of hope took root in his chest.

He left the hospital after that, but still did not go back to his apartment. Instead, he found himself pulling into a dark driveway in suburban Alexandria. He killed the engine and walked into the unlocked house, heading straight for the basement stairs. He opened the door and was greeted by the sound of sandpaper and smell of sawdust. Gibbs barely looked up from his project as Tony descended the stairs. The younger agent emptied a mason jar of nails like he had seen his boss do so many times and poured himself a glass of bourbon.

"Thought you hated that stuff?"

"I do," Tony answered as he took a swig, making as face as it slid down his throat with a burn.

"You think you've drank enough lately?" Gibbs asked, poking fun that wasn't really fun at all. Tony smirked, humorlessly.

"Can you blame me?"

"Nope," Gibbs responded, grabbing another piece of sandpaper off of the bench and tossing it in front of Tony. "Might as well make yourself useful."

Tony sat down the glass and walked over to the boat, helping in silence. The repetitive, soothing motion helped him untangle his thoughts.

"You didn't go home," Gibbs stated.

"Nope."

"Hospital?"

"Yep."

Gibbs nodded, and once again silence engulfed them, broken only by the _swish, swish_ of the sandpaper against wood. It was a few minutes before Tony spoke again.

"I ran into Dr. Herron while I was there."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, and she thinks it's time."

Gibbs paused, looking over at Tony with a raised eyebrow. "Time?"

"For Ziva to see me."

The older man blinked, doubtful. "Don't you think it's a bit soon?"

"I don't know," Tony answered honestly, shifting his weight. "But I need to do this, Gibbs."

"This isn't about you."

Tony blinked, taken aback. "I never said it was."

"Just checking."

"Boss, she needs to hear it from me. It's the only way she can start to believe it."

"You sure she's ready?"

Tony shrugged. "The doctor seems to be." Gibbs cocked his head to the side.

"Are you?"

Tony blinked, looking down at the sandpaper in his hands and running his thumb across its abrasive surface. He pursed his lips. Gibbs continued.

"It could go badly," he warned. "She could be having a bad day, or you could make one misstep, she could go into a panic. You have to be prepared to hear her say the worst."

"If you're trying to scare me, it's not working."

"Don't want you getting hurt either, DiNozzo."

Tony sighed, leaning against the boat frame. "I know. Believe me, I know how this could go. But I… I need to do this."

He could see so clearly her bruised and terrified eyes staring up at him from the bed; could hear her frantic accusations as she begged the nurses to keep him from her room. Once again he remembered that terrible list of her injuries, and the burden of guilt settled even heavier on his chest. He gulped.

"I need to beg her forgiveness."

Gibbs frowned. "You didn't hurt her."

"But she thinks I did."

The sound of sandpaper against wood resumed as Gibbs turned back to his task with a sigh. "It's not gonna be pretty, DiNozzo. She's struggling."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "You talked to her? When?"

"Few days ago."

"Did she mention me?" The question slipped unbidden from his lips before he could stop it. Gibbs simply shook his head.

"You don't want to know, Tony."

"I think I do."

Gibbs shrugged. "She's upset, and she's got the facts really twisted up in her mind."

"That's all you're gonna tell me?"

"That's all you need to know."

They passed hours in silence after that, both immersed in their own thought and concentrating on the job in front of them. It was only when it approached midnight that Gibbs sent him upstairs to get some sleep. He'd had too much of the fiery, amber liquid to drive home, so he acquiesced and trudged up the stairs. He was exhausted, and tomorrow he would be grateful because if he hadn't been so sleep deprived, he probably would not have been able to fall asleep. He likely would have stared at Gibbs's living room ceiling and spent the whole night torturing himself with every possible scenario for the next day, good and bad alike.

But he hadn't slept properly in four nights, so he was out as soon as his body hit the couch.

**. . .**

McGee did not come that morning, and instantly she was suspicious. For the past four days he had arrived shortly after the breakfast she rarely touched and read to her for at least an hour. Today, she spent the morning alone and on edge. Something was different.

Around noon Dr. Herron showed up in the doorway, only serving to compound Ziva's unease. She pulled up the same chair she'd sat in yesterday and settled into it. The patient fidgeted.

"Ziva, I'd like to run something by you."

Ziva blinked. "Okay."

"I'll warn you, you're probably not going to like it. But I need you to keep in mind that unless we take some risks, you're going to be stuck like this for a while. You told me yesterday that you don't want to be afraid anymore. Is that still true?"

"Yes…" she replied hesitantly.

"Ziva, I think you need to see Tony."

"_No."_ Ziva responded almost the second that her former partner's name fell from her doctor's lips. Just hearing those four letters, those easy two syllables she'd said herself so many times in the past four years, made her want to cower in fear. They inspired such pain and terror in her heart. She could see his clean-cut face, his piercing mossy eyes, his hateful grin floating so clearly in front of her. Her bandaged fingers throbbed.

"He wouldn't come near you. You wouldn't even have to be alone with him. It would be completely on your terms, Ziva. But I think you need to talk."

"I cannot," she forced out, heart racing at the mere prospect.

"You want to believe that he didn't do this, right?"

"Yes, but…"

The doctor leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "Ziva, the only way you're going to believe it is if you see it with your own eyes. It has to be_ your_ decision."

Ziva sucked in a breath. "I do not… I do not think it is that simple."

"It isn't. I'm not going to lie to you. It's not like flipping a switch, and then all of a sudden all those memories are gone. It's going to take time, and effort. But you want to get better, right?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Then this is where you start."

And how could Ziva argue with that?

**. . .**

She had two hours to collect herself before Tony arrived, and she spent almost all of that time trying to keep herself from shaking. When she couldn't stop the tremors she thought maybe she was simply cold—after all, compared to her oven of a cell in the desert, this room was like a frozen tundra. But when, three blankets and a heating pack later, she was still shaking, she knew it was not cold but nerves.

She had absolutely no idea what to expect, but there was a significant part of her that insisted on pain. Perhaps it was not logical, but her overtaxed body was not concerned with logic, only self-preservation. Tony meant pain.

Despite this paralyzing fear, she had decided to do this alone. If she were to break down, to say things she shouldn't, she did not want anyone else to witness it. Besides, there was a part of her, the part of her spirit they hadn't quite been able to break, that wanted to do this on her own just to prove that she could. She was tired of being weak. She was tired of being the victim. There was still a piece left of her, a defiant remnant of the woman she once was, that was _furious _at what had been done to her. Even if her voice wavered and body trembled, she wanted to stand up for herself. It had been far too long.

As the clock on the wall neared two in the afternoon, she waited on edge, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway or a turning doorknob. It reminded her of those wretched months, the time she spent waiting for him to enter and carry out the day's torture. It took a lot to keep her in the present.

And then, finally, there were the footsteps. They stopped outside her room and she saw the doorknob turn. She braced herself against the bed, muscles wound tight and determined eyes fixed on the doorway.

In walked Tony DiNozzo.

He moved slowly, carefully, into the room, stopping just before the foot of her bed. Their eyes were locked, studying one another, carefully evaluating what they saw. Ziva exhaled sharply as she took in his appearance.

He was haggard. He had a few days' worth of stubble and his clothes—jeans and a button down shirt—were severely wrinkled. His hair stood on end, his eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles. Guilt and uncertainty were etched in his every feature, and he looked almost as nervous as she was.

And oh, how remarkably different he was than the proud, clean-cut man in the black suit that had torn her body and soul to shreds.

"Hey, Ziva," he greeted, his unsure voice little louder than a whisper.

The air left her lungs in a _whoosh,_ and in that moment something lifted.

**. . .**

His heart pounded a mile a minute as he stood in front of her room. He had yet to visit her in the daytime, when nurses milled about and sunshine poured in through the window at the end of the hall. He was used to silence and moonlight and a sleeping woman on the other side of that closed door. He did not know what he would find when he opened it, and possibilities both terrified and thrilled him. He wondered if she was in there waiting for him.

His feet were leaden as he stood there, trying to gather his thoughts. He'd spent all morning agonizing over what to say to her, running through every scenario he could imagine backwards and forwards. He hoped that when the time came, he would say the right things. Currently, however, his heart was in his throat and his mouth felt dry with the words he couldn't say. He had to take this gradually, he knew, but he wanted more than anything to let apology after apology spill from his lips, rule twelve and caution be damned. He did not know what he would be apologizing for, exactly, just that he needed her to know that he _never wanted this._

The metal handle was cold against his sweating hand as he pushed the door open. It swung in silently and revealed a bright, white room. There was a vase of colorful flowers on the windowsill and a shrunken, tense woman on the bed. She followed his movements with wide, scrutinizing eyes. It had been so long since he saw those coffee-colored irises, and although they held an unfamiliar, primal fear, there was something about them that comforted him. To see her awake and moving was a gift after so long of seeing her still, moonlit body lying like a corpse on the bed.

"Hey, Ziva," he managed to force out, his voice thick and hushed with the weight of it all. Internally, he berated himself because surely he could come up with something better to say?

She did not reciprocate the greeting. She looked, for lack of a better word, stunned. He could tell she was warring with some very strong emotions. They pooled and swirled together in her eyes that didn't leave his.

They were silent for a long time, and he almost could pretend it was just like old times, when they would lock gazes across the bullpen and communicate without needing a word. McGee would complain, tell them to get a room, but this was different. The tension between them was based not off of unresolved sexual tension but off of months of hurt and distrust that neither of them ever could have imagined would come to pass. She was scared of him, and trying so hard not to be.

And truth be told, he was scared of her, too.

It was she who finally broke eye contact. Her gaze fell to her lap and her cast-covered hands and he saw her inhale shakily. He held his breath.

"They say… that this is all in my head."

So soft were the words that he barely heard them. Her voice was only slightly less hoarse than it had been when he found her in the cell, her behavior only slightly less like a wounded animal. _Yes, it is, Ziva, it is,_ he wanted to blurt out, but he decided on patience. He wanted to hear what she would say. She gulped and continued.

"They say that you were not there. In Somalia."

She looked back up then, and he knew she was making a concentrated effort to keep her emotions under control. He could see in her eyes and all over her shaking body that it was not a battle easily won. He could not stop the next words from tumbling from his mouth.

"I wasn't, Ziva," he practically begged, shaking his head and looking at her with desperate eyes. "I promise you, I wasn't." His voice shook, and he hoped she recognized his sincerity.

Her lip trembled. "I can see it," she choked out, and he thought he saw the fear flare in her gaze. "I remember it all, clear as day, and I…" She looked away. "I do not understand."

"I don't either. But please, you have to know…" he gulped, "you have to know that I didn't do this, that I _could never—" _The words strangled him, and for a second he fought for breath. "Please believe me," he whispered.

She bit her lip and shook her head slowly. "I am trying," she implored, no louder than him.

"What did…" He hesitated. "What is it that you think I did?"

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly and she looked back down at her broken hands. He knew she was fighting something with all her strength.

"You do not want to know," she murmured, lips thin. Of course, it only piqued his morbid curiosity. "It feels so real," she added in her hoarse, quiet voice.

"It wasn't," he promised, willing to say it as many times as was necessary until she believed it.

"But I can feel them. The injuries." She held her twig-like arm up to the light, staring transfixed at her plaster-encased hand. Tony frowned.

"You really think I did that?" he asked, dismayed despite knowing for the past week that she thought him guilty. A part of him had still held on to the hope that she did not blame him for all of it. "You really think I broke your fingers?"

Her arm dropped back into her lap. She was silent, eyes downcast, and he did not know if it was uncertainty or shame or something worse that she was trying to hide.

"Ziva," he begged. Upon hearing her name spoken so delicately, with so much caution and reverence, she looked up. Her eyes were red, and he took an unconscious step toward her. "Ziva, I am _so sorry_."

She drew back the second he moved, a flash of fear darting across her face; discouraged and deflated, he took a few reeling steps back. She gulped and tried to regain her composure.

"I thought you did not do anything?"

He shook his head. "I should have gotten off the plane. I should have dragged you home with us. Then this never would've happened."

She took a deep breath. "I would have hated you."

"I could have lived with that if it meant you never…" He ran his hand through his messy hair. "Ziva, I never wanted this."

"Neither did I."

"Then let's fix this, okay?"

She shook her head. "It is not that simple, T—" She choked on his name, and it sent a shard of pain through his already wounded heart. "I am still…"

"You're still afraid," he finished. It was not a question. He could see it in her eyes, her posture, the way her entire body seemed to tremble when he spoke or moved. He knew she was fighting to keep terrible memories at bay.

"Yes," she answered quietly. To his surprise, she looked ashamed.

"We'll make this better, Ziva, I promise."

Tears gathered in her eyes and her mouth pressed into a quavering line. She nodded, with a determined strength that he had not expected. He wanted more than ever to go to her side, to pull her in his arms, to press a comforting promise of a kiss onto her temple. But instead, sensing their time had come to a close, he gave her a feeble smile and moved toward the door.

"Can I come back?"

She nodded softly, and hope blossomed warmly in his chest.

**. . .**

They were discharging her tomorrow.

According to her doctors, there was nothing left for them to do at the hospital. She had finished her round of antibiotics—which she did not remember ever taking—and the infection had subsided. Every one of her injuries needed merely time, and not extensive medical treatment, to heal. There was no reason she needed to be here any longer, they said. She would still have frequent sessions with Dr. Herron, but her doctors seemed to be in agreement that fresh air and a change of scenery would do her good.

"You get to go home, Ziva," her psychiatrist reminded her. "This is a good thing."

Ziva shivered. "I have no home," she declared emptily, merely stating the facts.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "Agent Gibbs told me you'd be going home with him. I assumed you knew?" Ziva shook her head.

"I have not spoken with him."

"Are you okay with going home with him?"

"I do not have another option," she admitted.

The nurse did not bring her a pill that night. Without the sedative, the night was restless. She found little sleep and a lot of staring blankly at the too-white ceiling in the too-white room. Despite having been cleaned as best as possible, she still felt like an unsightly blemish in this immaculately clean place.

Having been deprived of real, natural sleep for so long, it was possible that her body had forgotten how it worked. No matter how hard she tried, she could not seem to relax. There was always something—a car horn, footsteps, the air conditioning kicking on, commotion from other patients—that kept her alert and on edge. She watched the sunrise from her bed, marveling at the colors that painted the sky. After spending so many nights dreading the dawn, she'd forgotten that it could be beautiful.

She'd forgotten a lot of things.

Gibbs arrived shortly after her breakfast, stoic, confident, and unfazed as ever. In his arms was a pair of sweats and an NIS sweatshirt, both grey and both oversized. She gladly abandoned her oatmeal, which looked far too similar to the nutrition-less gruel she'd been occasionally fed over the past three months, and accepted the clothes, glad to wear something other than this loose wraparound gown. He backed out and allowed a nurse to enter and help her change.

The pants and sweatshirt slipped over her thick bandages with ease. They would have been large on her before Somalia, but the summer had shrunk her down to skin and bones and rendered the clothes gigantic on her tiny, skeletal frame. They swallowed her whole, making her look even more like a lost child than before.

"You ready to go?" Gibbs asked as he peaked back in the room. Ziva, who had been transferred to a wheelchair that she eyed with the utmost contempt, nodded.

"I've already signed you out. Anything you need me to take?"

She opened her mouth to answer_ yes, can you not see that my hands are broken?_, but stopped, realizing she was not sure she had anything to take with her. She looked around the room and found only her books and the vase of flowers on the windowsill. He followed her gaze and walked to the other side of the room to gather her meager possessions in his arms.

A nurse pushed her out to his car. She hated the wheelchair, but knew that it was necessary. A nurse had tried taking her on a walk to the end of the hallway a few days ago, but her atrophied legs could barely carry her past the door, and her once-crushed foot ached. A wave of humiliation flooded her as she was pushed like a helpless child through the hospital lobby and lifted into his waiting car. Gibbs had sense enough not to try to touch her and let the nurse maneuver her into the passenger seat.

They spent the first half of the ride in an uncomfortable silence. Occasionally she would slump forward in the seat, her weakened core unable to hold her torso up on its own. Gibbs often eyed her nervously from the corner of his eye.

"You okay with this?" he finally asked as the car came to a stop at a stoplight.

She swallowed. "I have to be, do I not?" He frowned in response.

"You don't 'have to be' anything, Ziver."

She did not answer.

"How did it go with DiNozzo?" he asked so offhandedly that it was as if he was asking about the weather, and not her reunion with the man she thought had orchestrated and executed her torture.

"Fine." She was shutting down, even she noticed, but she did not feel up to talking. She herself did not understand her emotions regarding that man—how could she be expected to explain them to someone else?

"Just fine?"

"What more do you want me to say, Gibbs?"

That time, it was he who did not answer.

The way he drove, they arrived at his house in no time. It was just as she remembered it. Grey siding, white trim, the stereotypical white picket fence that indicated what a beacon of the American Dream this home used to be. It looked like this five years ago when she arrived, gun in hand, to either kill or save her brother and decide the course of the rest of her life. Now, having reaped the grim rewards of staying loyal to her father, she returned here, a mess of broken bones and shredded skin and only a fraction of the woman she used to be.

A thought struck her.

"Has my father…?" she began to ask as he killed the engine.

"No," Gibbs answered simply, and she could see the regret and bits of anger showing on his face. She nodded, expecting nothing less.

"I see."

Gibbs stepped out of the car and headed around to her side. Her heart pounded and hair stood on end at the prospect of his touch.

"I do not need help," she insisted as he pulled the door open.

"That's bull."

"Really. I will be fine. Grab the books and the flowers. I will be in in a minute." Her sentences were halted and choppy and insistent. Gibbs did not seem to believe her, but he knew very well how stubborn she could be, so he grabbed her possessions from the backseat and headed into the house without so much as a glance backwards. She knew this was his own particular brand of helping her heal—tough love. The two complemented each other well.

She used her hands, encased in plaster, to pull herself up from the passenger seat. Her knees shook and right foot throbbed as she rose to a stand. It was such a foreign feeling, despite having practiced a few times with the nurses, because then she'd had help. Now, even though she was supporting herself on the car roof, she still had done it herself. She felt more in control than she had at any point in the last three months.

She shut the door and moved down the hood of the car, inching along with its help. Gibbs had parked close enough to the house that she only had to take a few steps on her own, and she felt like a small child learning to walk for the first time. She took it one step at a time, timid and cautious but independent. After so long of being trapped—in a chair, in a cell, in a hospital bed—to be moving about on her own volition was an intoxicating feeling. She could feel a bit of adrenaline rush through her, numbing the pain that had come to engulf her whole body at this foreign and strenuous movement.

She somehow made it up to the porch and to his door, and she felt a familiar surge of pride. She could not even be bothered to care that it was pathetic to celebrate doing something so elementary.

But then, of course, she was stopped by something so simple as a doorknob. Her broken and casted hands could not open the door and she gave a growl of frustration—she was still so very limited.

Gibbs opened the door for her, which she shouldn't have resented but did.

The inside of his house had changed about as much as the outside. It was still dusty and dull, lacking any sort of feminine touch. His furniture was all mismatched, and it was the couch that she collapsed on once she entered. She was panting and trying so very hard to hide that from him. She did not want him to know how much of an ordeal it had been to walk those thirty feet, although she suspected he already did.

As she sunk into the couch, she realized that she did not feel like any less of an outsider here than she had at the hospital. She'd spent many a night in this house, but it did not feel like she belonged any longer in this two-story home in suburban Alexandria. As terrible as it was, the only place she felt she belonged was a dirty cell in the Somali desert. That place, at least, made sense to her. She'd suffered there and planned to die there, and at least there she'd known what to expect.

But here, everything was foreign. She was like a fish out of water in this world where people were kind and her body was not swathed in a blanket of agony. She did not like feeling so confused and unsure. She did not like that her whole world, everything that had come to make sense, had been turned on its head.

And she especially did not like that a part of her wanted nothing more than to see Tony DiNozzo again.


	4. Chapter 4

**. . .**

**Part IV**

**. . .**

Gibbs's house was quiet, she found. She spent most of her first day in the living room, on the worn couch in the subdued room, watching dust motes illuminated by the light from the window dancing casually through the air. It was calm, very different from the constantly buzzing nature of the hospital and the violent turbulence of the terror camp. She was not sure that she liked it.

_She_ was buzzing. _She _was tumultuous and feeling such violent but confused emotions that she was rocked to the core. Her body still was tense and rigid, expecting a threat to come from any angle, and she still had trouble suppressing the little tremors of anxiety that passed through her at every sudden noise or movement. She was not calm, nor peaceful, and she felt wildly out of place in this muted home. The quiet around her only served to emphasize the thunderous nature of her tattered soul. It was deafening.

She knew Gibbs was concerned. It was written all over his normally impassive face as hours ticked by where she did nothing but stare blankly at a wall. As evening approached, he dropped one of her books at her side and suggested reading. She opened it in her lap without checking the title and zoned out once again. She liked not having to think about the world around her, which was confusing enough to turn her lingering headache to a migraine. Those puzzle pieces of her shattered life that she had, months ago in the delirium of the serum and suffering, forced back together into the only picture that had made sense at the time, were being pulled apart bit by painful bit by this warped reality. The green eyes of her memory oscillated between ruthless and benevolent, and for different reasons they both made her injured heart cry out in recognition. She forced the images away, hating the desperate questions that arose every time she thought of him.

Gibbs tried to get her to eat, went as far as relocating her to the dining room and placing the triangularly-cut grilled cheese sandwich on a plate in front of her, but the straight-backed chair made her uneasy and she was still uncomfortable with the prospect of real food. He insisted that she needed to eat, that she was skin and bones already, but she simply asked _you think I do not know that? _and continued to stare blankly at greasy slices of bread that were oozing yellow. She appeased him by drinking half of the small glass of milk he had poured her, the plastic child's cup clutched carefully between two plaster casts and guided by her thumbs that stuck out of them like twigs. She would throw it up only hours later as her body rebelled against the nutrition it badly needed but was unaccustomed to receiving.

She slept no better that night than she had the one before. She still, it seemed, could not fall asleep without sedation. Gibbs set her up in a guest bedroom, one that she was almost sure had been used for storage until a few days ago. The sheets smelled like the inside of his linen closet and the room was cold. After months of baking desert heat, his house felt like a tundra, but she could not find the energy or the voice to ask for more blankets. She shivered through the sleepless night.

The sun rose and with it came the realization of just how exhausted she really was. Her entire body still ached, a product of months of disuse and electric shocks. Despite this, she managed to maneuver on her stiff, weak, and weary limbs to the adjoining bathroom. The casts made even the simplest tasks of hygiene endlessly complicated, but she managed to accomplish them all the same, determined not to humiliate herself by asking Gibbs to help with such personal affairs. Just as she had in the hospital, she avoided looking in the mirror at all costs, but what glimpses she did catch showed a ghostly woman with dark-rimmed eyes and lifeless, tangled hair. She left as quickly as possible.

Over a breakfast that Ziva barely touched, Gibbs informed her that Tony would be joining them for dinner. He announced it casually, but her breath caught and her fluttering heart seemed to find its way into her throat the second she heard her former partner's name. If Gibbs noticed, he did not acknowledge it.

"Why?" she asked in a voice that came out an octave higher than she'd intended.

"'Cause you two need to talk some things out."

_Talk._ She shivered, remembering the stinging insults and promises of misery whispered into her ear as a compliment to the daily-prescribed torture. But then, in the next beat, there was an anxious man standing unassumingly at the foot of a hospital bed. She blinked and looked down at the plate of scrambled eggs.

"There is too much."

He quirked an eyebrow. "So, what, then? You're never gonna try? That's not the Ziva David I know." She looked up at him, eyes smoldering.

"I am not her."

He shook his head. "You can't let this take your identity, Ziver." She laughed dryly, humorlessly.

"It has taken everything else, has it not?"

He must not have known what to say to that, and so the conversation ended. He stood up, taking their plates with him, and headed to the kitchen. With his back to her as he did the dishes, she felt a small pang of regret. Despite everything, she did not like disappointing him. It was almost worse than disappointing Eli—who, though she had been rescued almost two weeks ago, still had not called.

She was sitting on the couch when Tony arrived, staring distantly at the muted Western playing on Gibbs's antenna TV. She had not heard his car pull up, so when she heard the footsteps on the porch and the door open she jumped. He emerged slowly from behind the wall that was the border to the entranceway, and despite knowing he was coming, she still felt her whole body tense up. The ache in already-stiff muscles intensified.

He did not say anything to her and stood in the archway for what felt like an interminable amount of time for the both of them. Barely any time had passed with them in the same room and yet they had already reached an impasse. Neither was sure what to do.

Gibbs saved them, coming in from the back where he had the grill going.

"Hope you're hungry, DiNozzo."

"Steak?" Tony asked, the charged moment between the two breaking.

"Nah, chicken."

"Got beer at least?"

The relationship between the two men helped ease some of the tension, because while she could not trust Tony she had, for some reason, come to trust Gibbs. She was able to keep her distance for a while, observing from her perennial spot on the couch the way her former torturer moved as he helped prepare their dinner. An unbidden memory seared her consciousness as she watched him spoon applesauce into a bowl. Suddenly she could so clearly see him, standing in front of her with a dirty bowl of leftover slop that she refused to eat stuck under her nose. He'd forced her face into the gruel, needing her to eat so she could live to experience more of his torture, and in anger she had spat it back in his face. He beat her to a pulp that day.

"Ready for dinner, Ziver?" Gibbs called, and she started once again. Her vision focused on Tony, who stood at the dining room table and was averting his gaze on the pretext of busying himself pointlessly with the silverware. She pulled herself to her feet. It was no easy task, but she did not want their help. She made it to the table on shaking but determined legs.

She sat in the chair farthest from Tony without thinking, knowing only her palpable unease that seemed to vary directly with every step toward him she took. Her wounds throbbed and she pulled into herself, staring emptily at the food Gibbs placed in front of her. Even if she had been up for eating, she doubted she could chew the meat. Her jaw and teeth ached from disuse and electrical torture, respectively. The applesauce she probably could have done, if that horrid memory hadn't jumped into her mind only minutes ago. She did, however, sip the milk. She kept her gaze pinned to an imaginary point behind Gibbs's head, but occasionally she could not help but steal a glance at Tony. He barely ate, either, and responded in a clipped tone when his boss asked questions. He was preoccupied, to say the least, very different from the determined, focused man she had known so terribly well in the past few months. Despite the differences, she could not quench the fear that had formed knots in her stomach.

She was worried the entire time that Gibbs might leave them alone. The silence was heavy enough even with the older man there to relieve it. She did not know that she could stand sitting alone at this table with Tony DiNozzo. There was so much between them, and neither knew where to start.

Unfortunately, Gibbs seemed to be sticking with his characteristic approach of tough love, because it was not long before he did just as she feared. With a mumbled excuse about tending to the grill out back, he picked up his plate and left Tony and Ziva sitting diagonally from each other at the table. Both stared straight ahead. The footsteps faded and the door slammed shut, and she jumped minutely in her chair. He blinked and looked over at her, concerned, and she took a shaky breath. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

"Do you like it here?"

The question threw her for a loop, and she frowned. "I do not mind it."

"Gibbs takes care of you okay?"

"I can take care of myself." A long-lost remnant of old-Ziva peeked through her tattered exterior. It made him smile a bit to himself, and she found herself relaxing ever so slightly because it was a far cry from the plotting, sinister grin she'd come to know.

"Ziva, what do you remember from before Somalia?"

The question came suddenly, catching her off guard. She had not expected so direct, so heavy, of an inquiry this quickly, if at all.

"I…" she hesitated, realizing the answer with surprise and a bit of fear. "Not much, " she responded, eyes widening. The memories of her life in DC came in bits and flashes, like pieces of a dream that she had barely a tenuous grasp on. Anxiety pooled in her stomach.

"Oh." He was visibly dejected. "Okay."

"I remember… that we were partners," she recalled. "That I trusted you." The generalities she knew—it was the specifics of all those years that she seemed to have shoved away to an inaccessible corner of her brain. Perhaps her memories of the good times at NCIS were one of the first casualties in her struggle to force those jagged puzzle pieces of her history into a pattern that made sense, that was consistent with the reality she'd come to know in Somalia. She must have done this, subconsciously, to lessen the sting of his betrayal and to make more sense of her twisted life; but now, it was herself that she felt betrayed by. She gulped, trying to pull back as much as she could. One thing in particular stood out, as it was one memory she'd never shoved away.

"I remember that you murdered Michael."

She saw the words hit him across the face like a physical blow, and she could not deny satisfaction that flared in her chest. But relishing in his pain made her no better than him, and she felt regret and disgust flood her immediately as he recoiled from her accusation.

"_Ziva…_" he sounded so pained. "I'm not a murderer. What I did, I did in self defense."

She shook her head adamantly. "No. I remember what I saw. You… you were standing there with a gun in your hand, and Michael…"

"I wasn't standing," he corrected, "I was on the floor, and Rivkin was coming at me. I had no choice." His insistent words brought long-lost flashes of a sweltering concrete rooftop, her on top of him, the cold barrel of a gun in her hand and shoved against his chest… She blinked.

"You killed him."

"I know."

"In my apartment."

"Yeah."

"And then you blew it up."

She realized how absurd that accusation sounded the second it fell from her lips. He sat up straight, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Ziva, that was Mossad."

She knew that. She remembered that. She remembered assaulting Hadar outside Mossad headquarters—she'd assaulted quite a few people that day, apparently—and the picture he handed her as an admission of guilt. How could she have forgotten this? Why had it made so much sense that _Tony_, who had trouble working his toaster, would rig her apartment to explode? She blinked, realizing that that particular detail about his kitchen appliance troubles came from summers and summers ago. There were flashes of tangled sheets and empty take out containers. She grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut against the flow of memories seeping back from exile. Her head throbbed with an oncoming migraine.

"Ziva? Are you okay?"

She shuddered, blinking. The lights were much too bright. "There is so much." So much of what, exactly, she did not know. She did know that it was overwhelming and rocked her to her core.

"It's a lot to take in."

At that moment she did not need, did not want, his sympathy. "Do not act as if you know how this feels."

"I'm not," he assured her, sounding more than a little desperate. "I don't understand. Ziva, make me understand."

She shook her head. "There is so much," she repeated, sounding smaller this time.

"At least let me know where we stand? I need to know how to move forward."

"I do not know," she admitted helplessly. "I cannot tell what is true."

"I never wanted you to get hurt. That's true. I went to your apartment to protect you, not kill Rivkin—that's also true." His voice shook, and he looked just as lost as she was. "And as long as I'm being honest, I'm scared as hell right now that I won't be able to fix this."

"This…" she shook her head, "this is not your mess to fix."

He raised an eyebrow. "Thought you still blamed me for all this?"

"I am… trying…not to," she admitted. "I do not _want_ to believe you did this." She gestured vaguely at her heavily bandaged body.

"And yet…"

"This kind of fear is not an easy thing to overcome. What you—what_ he _did…" She corrected herself when she saw the flash of pain in his eyes, "…there is a lot here to work through."

"I'd never hurt you, Ziva. Please, believe me."

"I am _trying._ But he will not leave me alone."

"He being Saleem, or me?"

She looked away. "It is not _you._ He does not act anything like you do. But… but he looks like you. And he talks like you, even if what you have to say is much… kinder… than him."

"Ziva, he's not real," he begged, leaning forward in his chair. She drew back immediately in response.

They were interrupted once again by Gibbs coming in from the back yard. He had grill tongs in his hands and was wearing his usual steely poker face. If he noticed what he was interrupting, he did not say anything about it.

"Want another beer, DiNozzo?"

"Nah, Boss, I should get going," Tony answered, and she could see that his heart weighed heavy after their revealing conversation. It had not ended as well as either of them would have liked.

Tony left swiftly, saying goodbye to her only as a formality. That tension between them had not been alleviated, despite their talk, and neither wanted to suffer through another strained conversation that night.

It was just getting dark when Tony left. Ziva moved back to her spot on the couch, knowing that she should soon get ready for bed considering how long it now took her to go through the arduous routine with broken hands. But lying in a cold bed staring blankly at the ceiling as she tried and failed all night to fall asleep held no appeal for her, so she stayed. Gibbs, after taking care of a few things in the kitchen, came and sat in the recliner near her. She bristled.

"You're gonna need someone to change your bandages and take care of your wounds sometime in the next few days," he deadpanned, setting the issue to be discussed in front of them clearly in a very Gibbs fashion. "Want me to call Duck?"

She froze, abhorring the thought of a man, even a friendly man, laying his hands on her abused body. "No." Her tone left no room for argument.

"Abby?"

Ziva frowned. "I have not seen Abby yet," she mused tangentially.

"We weren't sure it was a good idea to send in someone so bubbly when you were so…"

Fragile. Broken. Unpredictable. Unstable. The meaning was clear, even though he never finished his sentence. She nodded.

"I would not mind Abby."

"Want me to call and tell her tomorrow?"

"If you like."

And so, with relatively little fuss, that practicality was settled. Gibbs stood and retreated to the basement, leaving her alone once again to ponder the mess her life had become.

**. . .**

The wooden stairs creaked noisily under her bare and clumsy feet. He did not look up from his work as she descended into his basement, feeling as if she was intruding on his personal space despite having done this frequently, a lifetime ago. A lot of important things had happened between them in this sawdust-coated portion of his home. There was a barrage of chopped, distant memories—a fatal gunshot and a low, grieving lullaby; a desperate phone call and a lonely tear. Among others, these images flashed before her eyes, but she shoved them back where they came from, unwilling to consider the past that she was even more uncertain of after this evening.

"It's…" Gibbs glanced at the clock, "one am, Ziver." His little nickname helped her relax, if only a little.

"I cannot sleep," she answered as she finally dismounted the last step. Stairs were always a struggle, now.

"How long's this been goin' on?" He still did not look up at her, and she almost appreciated it. She felt pathetic, like a frightened child coming to her parents after a scary dream. She knew she looked like hell warmed over, tired and timid and shaking like a leaf with the exertion all this was putting on her atrophied muscles. No, she preferred he did not see her. The basement was dark, and she stayed in the shadows.

"Since the last night in the hospital."

"Since they stopped sedating you," he reiterated.

"Yes."

He nodded. "You need sleep."

"You think I do not know that?" she scoffed. "I am trying, Gibbs." She was _trying_ to do a lot of things, and it was frustrating to no end that she could not make own body and mind obey her.

"Kelly used to have trouble sleeping, too." It was a rare moment of honesty that she never could have expected. He did not talk about his daughter. Perhaps it was the almost-empty mason jar of bourbon sitting on the table, or perhaps that desperate times call for desperate measures, but tonight he offered the information without prompting and on his own volition. He must have been more worried about her than he let on.

"She did?"

"Yup. Always went on and on about the monsters under her bed. Poor kid hated the dark."

Ziva looked down at her trapped hands and ran a jagged thumbnail over the rough, hard bandages. "What did you do?"

"Bought her a nightlight and chased the monsters away."

Ziva swallowed. "But I am not a child, and my monsters…" Her monsters were not the fur-covered, fanged kind that fit under a bed. Her monsters came in the form of men with knives and whips and chains, in the form of syringes spurting fiery clear liquid. They were of smoldering cigarettes and lustful, dangerous green eyes. Her monsters could not be scared away by a nightlight, if by anything at all.

"Well when the light didn't work, I told her to scare them away with happy thoughts."

"That may have worked for Kelly, but I do not think that will work for me," she huffed.

"Why's that?" he challenged.

"There are not a lot of… happy thoughts… left."

"Everyone's got happy thoughts, Ziver, even you."

She shook her head, voice cracking. "I can barely remember anything, now, besides the… besides this summer."

"Not even from when you were a kid?"

Tali emerged from somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind and hit her like a breath of fresh air. "Oh," Ziva whispered, remembering her sister's sweet, innocent face. She was filled with longing that shoved out the fear, even if only temporarily.

"Got something?"

"Yes," she muttered, clinging to the mental image that she couldn't believe had taken her this long to invoke.

"Good. Now go sleep, you need it," he ordered, still never looking up from his work.

It took her a humiliatingly long time to make her way to the top of the basement staircase, and twice as long to make it to the guest room on the second floor, and when she finally made it to the bed she collapsed, exhausted. She was lulled to sleep by the faint, angelic voice that had resurrected along with Tali's smiling face. She let the warm melody engulf her, allowing it to force the terror away, still knowing the whole time that that terror would be waiting for her with open arms the second the voice and pleasant memories faded.

But for now, in the fear's absence, she finally, _finally,_ drifted.

**. . .**

It was the slamming of a door that roused her, pulled her consciousness from a deep stupor and into the present. Her weary eyes blinked, squinting against the sunlight—how long had she slept?

It was hot, very hot, and for a moment she found herself wondering what had possessed Gibbs to crank the heat. That was before, of course, she recognized her surroundings. This was not Gibbs's guest room. She was not in his bed, in his grey sweats and oversized NIS sweatshirt. She was not wrapped in blankets and bandages.

In fact, she was not wrapped in anything but a layer of sweat, dirt, and dried blood, and beneath her was no box-spring mattress but a dusty, concrete floor. Every single part of her body radiated pain, and she hadn't realized until now how much she'd truly recovered back in DC. The horror crept up on her and grasped her around the neck, stealing her breath and sending her empty stomach into a fit of terrified spasms. Bile crept up in her throat.

"Finally awake, I see?"

No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. She squeezed her eyes tighter shut, thinking in vain that if she couldn't see him then he wouldn't be real. But she could hear his footsteps approaching and she knew when he stopped just next to her that there would be no escaping this time.

"I guess the serum wore off, then," Tony mused, and she made the mistake of opening her eyes. He stood over her with a sick grin and those sparkling green eyes. "That's the longest it's ever lasted. Saleem is getting better."

"This is not real," she ground out, staring him challengingly in the eyes with more courage than she thought she ever could have possessed. He quirked an eyebrow.

"I think you're still a bit confused. _This_ is real."

"No. I am imagining this."

"Oh, I'm real, Zee-_vah,_" he promised, digging the tip of his polished black shoe into her naked side. She whimpered as she felt him disturb a broken rib. "I'm as real as it gets. That serum's got you all confused." He cocked his head to the side. "You really think they rescued you, don't you?"

"They did," she ground out, breathless as he continued to probe her bruised torso.

"And who is _they?_ Gibbs? _Me?_ Come on, Ziva, don't be absurd. I'm right here." He held out his hands, gesturing to the filthy cell. "Welcome back to reality."

"You are lying," she hissed.

"Ziva," he sighed, shaking his head and walking over to the rickety table against the wall. From on top of it he pulled a familiar syringe. Her breath hitched. "This is an extremely powerful hallucinogen. We've designed it _just_ to torture you. You don't seriously still think you got away now, do you?"

"But why would you do this?" she demanded as he walked back over to her. He knelt at her side and she pulled away weakly.

"Well, think about it. What kind of worse torture is there than thinking it was over, _thinking_ you were rescued and safe… and then realizing it was all a lie and that you never left; that you still have months, _years _even, of unbearable pain left to endure?" He smirked, yanking her twig-like arm from her side and pulling it taut across his leg. He uncapped the syringe and shoved the needle into her arm. She felt the terrible, familiar burn as he pushed the serum back into her abused body. Her ragged, terrified breathing slowed and her eyes fluttered.

"Goodnight, Ziva. See you soon," was the last thing she heard, before once again there was darkness.

**. . .**

She found herself suddenly in a bed, in an otherwise empty room illuminated by the first rays of morning sunshine streaming in from the window. Gibbs's house, she told herself. She noticed she was shaking.

The sharp pain of what felt like moments ago had been reduced to a dull ache spread across her stiff body. The spot on the crook of her arm where she'd been injected so many times stung.

_This is real,_ she tried to remind herself. _That was just a dream._ This place certainly felt real. Nothing about it felt like a hallucination. But Tony's terrible words echoed freshly in her head and planted an idea, this terrible seed of doubt, that once there could never totally be removed. She shivered, part from the cold and part from fear. _This has to be real. It cannot be a hallucination._

But after the past few months, she no longer trusted her ability to distinguish between the two, so that day she tried her very hardest to forget. She actually began to read, and not simply stare at, the words in the pages of her favorite books. The familiar stories brought her more comfort than she had expected, cocooning her in their twists and turns and allowing her to momentarily forget her own incredibly twisted life.

Gibbs introduced her that day to the hammock out back and she spent a good portion of the day sitting in its folds, either reading or absently studying the suburban wildlife of her former boss's backyard. The fresh air seemed to help keep the dark, doubtful thoughts away, even if her ribs still ached and healing wounds still throbbed.

She managed to eat a bit that day, even if it was only a quarter of a piece of toast and a few spoonfuls of soup. Gibbs seemed mildly pleased, and it surprised her how his satisfaction made her want to eat more. At heart, she was still a little girl, eager to please.

Abby, as promised, came that night to help clean and re-dress her wounds. Ziva had never seen the woman so hesitant or so quiet. It was almost disconcerting. The scientist treated her like she was made of glass.

Abby's eyes filled with tears the first time she saw her friend. She found Ziva in the living room and approached slowly, as if she were an animal Abby was afraid of spooking. Her light eyes were wide and sad.

"Ziva?"

"Hello, Abby." Ziva wondered if she didn't look worse than Abby had been expecting.

Abby reached the couch and sat down delicately. Ziva tried to keep herself from pulling back. Not since the nurses had she had someone so close to her, and for obvious reasons. But having a woman near was not so difficult. Ziva almost welcomed it, and when Abby wrapped her in a soft and careful hug, she went easily into her arms. Her eyelids fluttered.

"C'mon, let's go get you cleaned up," Abby declared, pulling back. She helped Ziva stand and from there helped her across the room and up the stairs. Ziva did not object.

They ended up in the bathroom, with Ziva sitting on the lid of the toilet as Abby drew her a bath and washed her hands.

"I don't want to get any bacteria on your wounds," she explained.

Abby first helped her remove the sweatshirt, finding almost Ziva's entire torso wrapped in bandages. There were reddish-brown stains on parts of her back where she must have somehow reopened a few welts. Ziva shivered once again at the cold.

"I'm going to try to take the bandages off now, okay?" Abby requested permission, and Ziva nodded her consent. She winced when the bandage was pulled from parts where dried blood had acted as a sort of glue, but otherwise it was a relatively painless process. The cool air felt strange on the healing wounds.

Her entire torso, except the ends of her arms that were engulfed in plaster, was now bare, and Ziva could feel Abby's eyes roaming and assessing the damage. Out of curiosity, the tortured woman looked down at her own body, and found it a macabre, geometric array of burns from cigarettes and fire pokers, patterned knife carvings, and the occasional bite mark on her breasts. Still-healing bruises colored the majority of her body a sickly yellow. She could see the ends of long, thin welts where the tip of a bullwhip wrapped around her sides. She did not want to know how much of a shredded mess of wounds her back was, but judging from the look of horror and grief on Abby's face, it was not good.

"Oh, _Ziva…_"

"It is okay, Abby."

"No, it's not. What kind of monster could…" her tear-filled voice caught, "I mean, how could someone _ever…_ Oh God, you must have been so scared," she whispered, placing a shaking but comforting hand on an unscarred portion of Ziva's shoulder.

"I survived."

Abby shook her head. "It never should have happened." From there she moved on, setting her mind back to the task at hand. She helped Ziva pull off the sweatpants and her undergarments, which left her completely naked. Ziva's heart was racing. She hated how vulnerable and exposed she felt.

Abby's breath hitched when she noticed the finger-shaped, yellowing bruises that wrapped their way around her friend's skinny thighs. As a fellow woman, she understood all too well what that meant. She clenched her jaw.

"I'm sorry, Ziva," she offered, looking at her with sad and knowing eyes. There was no pity, and Ziva appreciated that.

"It is not your fault," Ziva promised, giving her a small, reassuring smile. "But yes. I am, too." Of all the horrors she had endured, that was the one she tried the hardest not to think about. It filled her with disgust and shame and brought bile rising in her throat. Even if it hadn't been Tony, she still would have locked the relatively recent memory away.

Getting back to work, Abby opened a few plastic bags and put them over Ziva's forearms, taping them off just below the elbow to keep the casts from getting wet. She then shut off the bathtub faucet and helped Ziva maneuver her lanky, boney body into the shallow water. It was dangerous to submerge open wounds in still water due to threat of infection, as Abby seemed well aware. Luckily, the showerhead was attached to a metal hose and could be pulled away from the wall.

Ziva felt the panic creeping up on her almost the second the stream of water hit her body. She recoiled, suddenly thrown back to a few weeks ago to that forsaken cell where the life-giving substance she'd craved so much was used to break her spirit. She remembered the hallucinations of drowning, being waterboarded, having buckets dumped over her so that when he shoved the cattle prod into her stomach her entire body felt like it was being fried. She gasped, desperately pulling in air she didn't expect to come. Abby withdrew with frightened eyes.

"What happened?! What did I do? Are you okay?" The rapid fire questions pulled Ziva back to the clean, tiled bathroom. She shook her head, shivering.

"I am fine," she ground out, trying to root herself in the present. Her vulnerable state of undress did not help matters.

Once she got past the initial shock of fear, the water actually felt quite pleasant. Even in the hospital she'd received only sponge baths. The warm rivulets of water trailed down her skin and eased her muscles. The open wounds stung slightly, but it was a mild pain that was overshadowed by the odd satisfaction of watching the congealed blood wash off her skin. The water swirled a light red color and disappeared down the drain. It took a bit of effort to keep the panic at bay, but it was well worth it. Abby's gentle, cleansing hands helped ground her, and she found she did not mind having another woman's hands on her, especially a woman that she trusted.

Once her body had been washed, Abby shampooed and conditioned her greasy and tangled hair. It took a lot of rinsing and repeating, but eventually her thick curls were truly free of the clinging, residual grime. Abby helped her from the bathtub and patted her dry, then sat her back on the toilet and wrapped her back up with some of the clean bandages the nurses had sent her home with. Overtop she placed a pair of blue pajamas Ziva had never seen before. Soon, Ziva was washed and dressed, and despite the hassle she found herself feeling refreshed and cleaner than she had in months. Abby helped her brush her teeth and hair, then moved her to the bed where she fell, exhausted, under the covers.

"Thank you, Abby," she sighed, heavy eyelids drooping. Abby smiled.

"Anytime. I mean that. Rest, okay? We can talk more some other time."

Clean and content, Ziva obeyed.

**. . .**

She no longer wanted to sleep. While just yesterday she'd been yearning for it, remembering what happened when she finally managed to drift into unconsciousness kept her awake long into the night.

Eventually, however, exhaustion won its battle against fear, and she found herself once again lying naked and bleeding in that dreaded desert cell.

"Welcome back," Tony greeted, glancing up from the knife he was sharpening. She winced at the metallic, screeching sound, and despite the baking heat a shiver ran down her spine. She took deep breaths, trying to coach herself through the resurgence of pain all over her body, and winced when expanding lungs disturbed broken ribs.

_Wake up, Ziva,_ she commanded herself, shutting her eyes against the remembered horrors. It did not work.

"Still not convinced this is real, huh?"

She tried to pull back the memory of Tali's face and sweet, sweet voice, but in this setting all she could see was the burning café of a distant, recurring hallucination. Tony approached, sunlight glinting on his freshly sharpened blade, and knelt next to her quavering body. He looked down at his prisoner with that crooked smile she'd once found charming.

He carved into her body relentlessly. Not even her tortured, gargled screams deterred him as he cut patterns and cruel words and wicked her skin from her bones with his wicked blade. He pinned her raw wrists to the ground in an attempt to quiet her sobbing struggles, which grew feebler with every drop of blood that dripped from her fresh wounds.

Eventually he had his fill of cruelty and stood, wiping his bloody blade on her cheek, and retrieved the syringe from the table. The serum burned in her veins but she welcome it, as it brought the darkness and the promise of hallucinations of a world where none of this was real.

She awoke gasping, the pain of shredded skin gradually ebbing away. Looking down at her prone body, she found herself clothed in Abby's pajamas without a spot of blood to be seen. Her head fell back onto the pillow and she clung to this, trying to pretend it was enough proof that what she had just woken from was indeed only a bad dream.

**. . .**

Tony came over again the next evening, and Ziva kept her distance. Last night weighed heavily in her memory and she could still feel echoes of the searing pain spread across her body. She did not stay away completely, for it brought her some modicum of comfort to see him. From his attire to his posture to the way he moved and acted around her, he was very different from the man who had sliced her apart last night. Even so, it was still _Tony,_ so she purposefully kept interaction with him at a minimum.

He must have noticed that they'd regressed, because he drank quite a lot that evening. From what she counted, he had a beer before dinner, a few with it, and one and a half after before Gibbs cut him off. She could see it affecting him, the way his longing glances at her began to increase in frequency and decrease in furtiveness. The one time Somalia-Tony had gotten drunk, he had pinned her to the ground and raped her, but this Tony simply rambled on about paperwork and cases to his boss. Ziva did not process the words but relished in their calm cadence. Being around him had a strange ability to assuage her fears, even if she was on edge the entire time. Every gentle gesture and word discredited even further the sadistic version of her memory and night terrors. But still, she did not speak to him, no longer ready to do anything but observe.

A part of her wanted nothing more than to go to him, to allow him to show her with his tender touch that he was nothing like the man she had come to know so terribly intimately. She wanted to erase his cruel touch with his gentle one. The way he looked at her, she knew he wanted the same thing. But such a step was huge, and she knew it would open so many doors she was not yet ready to see behind. Besides, the idea still sent chills of fear down her shoulder blades. She felt perpetually torn in two directions—between belief and distrust, between letting her guard down and remaining cautious, between her fear and her desire for comfort.

But if none of this was real, what did it matter?

**. . .**

He slept on Gibbs's couch that night. According to his boss, he'd had too many beers to drive home. Tony also suspected that Gibbs was questioning his state of mind—but probably rightfully so. Seeing Ziva so withdrawn had done a number on him. After the other day, he'd expected that they'd take a few more steps in the right direction that night. Instead, he was greeted by a distant woman who looked just as apprehensive of him as she had in the hospital. So he drank, and drank, and drank, until the world was a bit fuzzy and he was sent with a pillow to the couch to sleep it off.

The couch smelled like her, which did not help matters. He wondered if she would be upset if she knew he was sleeping in the room just below her. He wondered if she was having as much trouble sleeping as he was. He wondered if she was still in any pain. In short, he could not keep his thoughts from her, and when he slept it was light and broken despite his inebriated state.

He woke up around four in the morning for no apparent reason and couldn't fall back to sleep. He lay staring at the ceiling, knowing that just through it slept the woman he wanted to see most in the world. The night was quiet—even Gibbs had gone to bed. There was only the occasional car driving down the street, lighting the room momentarily with the glare of headlights. Otherwise, it was completely silent.

Until he heard a muted_ bang_ and the sound of labored, gasping breathing from the room directly above him.

He sat up almost without thinking, quietly making his way up the stairs and grasping the railing to keep him from losing his balance. Her room was the first on the left, and as he pushed open the door he heard a low creak and her breath hitch.

He stood in the doorway for a few moments, looking into the dark room. The soft light from the hall cast his long shadow across the floor and onto the foot of her bed. She lay on the mattress, the moonlight illuminating her watery eyes and sweating brow. He was reminded of all the times he snuck into her hospital room after dark, except here she was awake, and she was terrified. He could see her shaking, eyes transfixed on his silhouette in the doorway, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. A nightmare, he was sure. The noise he heard must have been her head hitting the wooden headboard.

He waited, wanting her to make the first move. She needed to be the one to initiate this, because judging by the look of terror in her eyes, he had featured heavily in that night terror of hers. He shuddered and waited.

But she simply stared, wide eyed, and he realized she was waiting on _him_ to set the precedent for this encounter. While he was terrified of shattering what little trust in him she'd managed to build back up, he knew that without some risk they could never move forward.

_Someone_ had to take the first step, and that night, it was him.

He moved toward her slowly, cautiously, studying her anxiously for any sign that he should stop. She made no protest, but did not let her terrified eyes fall from his as he approached. Soon he passed the foot of the bed and could hear the tiny, shaky breaths falling from her slack mouth. There was no mistaking the fear she felt, but still she made no move to stop his advancements.

And then he was next to her, standing directly at her bedside, closer than she'd let him since he carried her broken body out of the cell and the whole way home. He'd let go of her in the ambulance having no idea the trials that were to befall them. The small space between them was heavy with the weeks they'd spent so far apart, mentally and physically.

He felt as if he was towering over her, and he could only imagine how uncomfortable that made her feel. Carefully he sunk onto the bed next to her, not moving his eyes that held so many assurances from hers. He heard her breathing hitch as the mattress depressed under them both. Now he could not only see but feel her tremors, and he felt the overwhelming desire to pull her into his arms and hold her until she stopped shaking. Their bodies were so electrically close, and he felt the pull.

Her ghostly, sunken face stared up at him from the pillow upon which she was propped up. It was covered in a sheen of perspiration, framed by dark and wild curls. An errant lock of hair was stuck haphazardly across her cheek. Tony reached out with a hand that shook as much as she did, still watching for any clue that she had reached her limit. They were so tantalizingly close.

She held her breath as he brought his hesitant fingers up to her face, and with a feather-light touch swept the wayward curl behind her ear. His warm hand settled on her cheek, and at first she flinched away ever so slightly. Her eyes were wider than ever, staring at him in a terrified bewilderment that he wished his touch could quell. Her skin was cold and sweaty.

But then, gradually, he felt her relax. Her eyelids fluttered and instead of leaning away she leaned _into_ his touch. His heart leapt as he felt her soft cheek press against his palm. She let out a ragged breath.

"Tony?" she whispered, the word barely more than an exhale. He took a deep breath to steady himself—this was the first time she had been able to address him by name.

"Yeah, it's me," he promised softly, stroking the side of her head as if he were attempting to heal months of dehumanizing torture in one simple touch. She opened her eyes and looked up at him with an almost childlike fear. It was his turn to hold his breath.

"Do not leave."

The words, a barely audible plea read on her cracked lips, put a lump in his throat. No words could express his surprise or his happiness. She wanted him near—as long as that much was true, everything else could be fixed.

He took her words as an invitation, and throwing caution to the wind he twisted himself so he was leaning back against the headboard. He held the edge of the blankets and looked at her with a question in his eyes. She nodded, and he slipped under them and into the warm space with her. She came easily into his open arms, allowing him to wrap her in a gentle, soothing embrace. She was shaking and breathing heavily once again, but her head rested comfortably on his chest. He could feel both of their hearts beating rapidly in their chests, a physical sign of their nervousness and fear at this long-awaited moment. Her body fit so perfectly against his, and though he was mindful of her injuries he kept her snugly tucked in his arms. She made no noises of protest—in fact, she relaxed against him. It was a turn of events that he considered nothing less than a miracle, especially since she gave him the cold shoulder at dinner that evening. He could only imagine what she must have seen in that nightmare of hers that sent her willingly into his arms. Logically, it made no sense that she would allow him so close. He did not want to question it—he wanted to take this one good thing and accept it at face value. But nothing was ever face value with her, and he could not stop the concern that welled in his chest. He needed to make sure she was doing this for the right reasons.

"Ziva?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you letting me so close all of a sudden?" he asked, not beating around the bush. He felt her inhale deeply, and for a moment there was silence while she considered an answer.

"I need this," she answered in a timid voice.

"This?"

"I need…" she hesitated, sighing. "I need to know that you are not him, that this is real."

"Real?" he asked, brow furrowing in confusion. She did not answer him, and silence resumed.

He was grateful for this, even if her reasoning was not completely sound, because every moment that he was able to show her that he was not the man who tortured her was a stitch in their torn relationship. He wanted to assure her of his innocence, and knowing she wanted the same thing was a huge relief. He absently ran his hand along her arm, and he felt the tension draining from her body. Her even breathing was music to his ears.

She fell asleep with her skeletal body nestled in his arms, her head resting on his chest that had filled with intoxicating, forbidden hope.

**. . .**

She awoke peacefully, but alone. It took her a few moments to register the emptiness in the bed, and more moments after that to realize just _why_ that emptiness threw her for a loop. Eventually she remembered Tony, and her stomach roiled.

She could not say that she regretted it. The decision to let him close, a lapse of judgment though it may have been, had brought her comfort and a dreamless sleep, things she could only have hoped for. But she had been weak. She should not have allowed this to happen, because it set a precedent that, in the light of day, she was not so comfortable going with.

Her dream that night had shaken her, badly. It had begun just like all the others, with promises that her rescue was a hallucination, that she'd never left this room of a thousand tortures. But the things he said to her, oh, they were so vile. Promises of abandonment, that no one was looking for her, that she deserved every drop of blood that spilled from her veins and every bone-chilling scream that fell from her cracked lips. He promised her that she was unloved, and she would rot away here to a pile of blood and bones and excrement and no one would care. He promised that her newfound family in DC, the one's she'd walked away from, all knew of her fate—that even her father, sitting in his leather chair at his grand, mahogany desk, was aware of her location and her suffering. None would lift a finger to save her. As his words wrapped around her brain, his fingers wrapped around her neck, squeezing the air from her lungs as she struggled and took huge, desperate gulps of air. And then he'd injected her again and she'd woken, hitting her head on the board behind her as she struggled against an invisible demon. Eventually she took stock of the dark room around her and understood where she was, and her gasping breaths slowed. And then a light had flicked on in the hallway.

He'd appeared in the doorway a giant, looming silhouette. At first there was nothing but fear, as only moments ago this very man had been wringing the life from her body with his bare hands. But the man in the doorway was hesitant, his shoulders slumped, and he made no move toward her. She'd waited with bated breath, saucer-sized eyes transfixed.

She had not meant to let him so close. She'd meant to stop him, to say something, _anything_ to slow his advance, but he continued to approach her and she did nothing but shake and stare.

And then he'd sat down next to her on the bed, and she realized as she felt the mattress move under them both that she'd inadvertently let him so much closer than she'd ever intended. A shiver travelled down her spine. But he was near enough that she could see his face—the worried gape of his mouth, the sad but hopeful pools in his eyes, everything so different from the Tony of her unconsciousness. It was so wonderfully reassuring, and his gentle face was a breath of fresh air. After the terrible things she'd heard him say moments ago, there was no greater comfort than seeing the Tony she remembered, if only vaguely, from before her world crumbled. The horrors of that nightmare had shaken her, left her vulnerable, hungry for reassurance, and only partly delusional. She wanted kind words and a kind touch. She wanted to erase that version of him from her memory. She wanted to forget.

And so, in that moment of weakness, she'd found herself crumpled in his arms, allowing him to stroke her arm and coax the fear and doubt from her weary bones. No, even in the light of day she did not regret it. But now having some distance from the horrible experiences of the nightmare, she was once again hesitant to let him close. She hoped beyond hope that he did not come to expect this kind of intimacy between them. He still did not understand the extent to which his doppelganger had destroyed her back in the desert, and perhaps that was her fault, but she was not ready for this yet. The hurt was still far too close to the surface, her wounds still too fresh, to let him near during the day.

But under the cover of darkness, she could allow him to offer her solace in the form of light touches, whispered words, and a protective embrace.

**. . .**

Tony returned home early in the morning with a wicked hangover. The memory of Ziva's touch lingered and distracted him from the pounding headache, leaving him dazed and wondering if it hadn't all just been a drunken dream. But he could smell her on his clothes, even if the sweet smell he was so used to was mixed with the smell of hospital and Abby's laundry detergent. He took what he could get.

A part of him fought like hell to keep himself from getting his hopes up. He knew she was unstable at the very least, and the night before could possibly have just been a fluke. But the clock struck midnight that night and _From Russia With Love _was interrupted by the shrill call of his cellphone. The caller ID read "Gibbs" and he answered it on the first ring, breathless.

"She okay?"

"Another nightmare."

Another? "You knew about last night?"

"I make sure I know what's goin' on in my own house, DiNozzo."

"Is she okay?" he repeated.

Gibbs huffed, voice low. "I tried calming her down, but it's not working. Think she needs you."

"I'll be right there."

Tony likely broke every traffic law in the book that night. Luckily there were very few people on the streets, so he made it to his boss's house in record time. He took the stairs two at a time and arrived panting in her room. She was sitting up, head tucked between her knobby knees.

She looked up when she heard him in the doorway, and the raw emotion that had pooled in her eyes floored him. She was downright terrified.

"Hey, it's okay," he began almost instinctively. He crossed the room in a few strides, sitting down on the side of the bed like he had the night before. She withdrew slightly, pulling back against the headboard. He did not let it deter him. "Bad dream?"

Her shudder was answer enough.

"They can't hurt you anymore. You're safe here." He wished more than anything to be able to hold her hands, but they were casted until the bones healed. She thought he'd broken them, he remembered. He shuddered along with her and settled for rubbing his thumb over hers. He saw some of the fear disappear from her eyes the second she registered his soothing touch.

"Can I hold you?" he asked, glancing up from their hands with a hopeful expression.

"Yes," she whispered.

And so he did, leaning against the headboard next to her and letting her settle against his chest. It still stunned him that she let him so close, even if only in the dark after terrifying dreams.

"I'm proud of you," he muttered, his mouth close enough to her ear that she heard the words perfectly. He could feel her frown.

"Hmm?"

"For being so brave. For… reaching out like this."

"Oh," she answered, low voice thick, and he wished suddenly that he could see her face. It was silent for a moment. His words seemed to have impacted her. "I do not feel brave," she finally murmured, her breath hot against his chest.

"This takes a lot of guts. It can't be easy, to let me so… close…" he tried to explain. He felt her gulp.

"It is not," she admitted softly. "But you are nothing like him. It… helps."

He exhaled, and her wild curls tickled the underside of his chin. "Do you want to talk about it? The dreams?"

"No," she answered simply, and that was that.

They fell asleep in much the same way they had the last night. He noticed a considerable lack of snoring, which made him sadder than he cared to admit. Flashes of the Ziva he'd met all those years ago—of silky green dresses and page fifty-seven and provocative slouching—arose in his mind, and they were bittersweet. She had changed so much, they both had, even before disaster by the name of Michael Rivkin struck. Still, they'd grown and changed together. Now, he could only guess what kind of horrors had reshaped her from a confident soldier into the shaking, timid creature he held in his arms that night. He too had done some changing—maturing, even—of his own over the summer, and he hoped the two of them hadn't changed so much as to be irreconcilable. He would be whoever she needed him to be, provided she would tell him.

He left before dawn, slipping out from under the warm blankets and away from the heat of her flushed body, into the chilly morning air. Gibbs, already awake and halfway done with his first cup of coffee, gave him a nod of appreciation as he headed to the front door.

"Comin' tonight, DiNozzo?"

"I don't know, am I invited?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Having steak, know you've been wanting it all week. Offer's there."

"I'll be here," Tony promised, leaving through the front door. His heart was light as he drove away.

**. . .**

Things were different in the light of day, just as she had expected. The past two nights spent curled in his arms turned out to have little bearing over her levels of unease when he came over for dinner. She could see in his deflated shoulders that he had expected so much more, and she almost felt guilty for misleading him.

Without the desperation that came with waking up from a terrifying nightmare, she could not bring herself to get close to him. Neither did it help that he had come straight from work and was dressed in a business suit. When he removed his jacket she cringed, remembering what such an action had meant in the past months. He'd been very careful not to get her blood on his jacket. _Armani,_ he'd explained in between blows of his whip or slices of his knife. She shivered.

"Hey, Ziva," he'd greeted as he hung up the jacket, but she only stared at him and saw the first bits of hope beginning to evaporate.

Gibbs cut her steak into baby-sized pieces, but she still had trouble chewing and only got a few bites down. The men, in contrast, ate what seemed like an entire t-bone each. Still, it was better than nothing, and Gibbs made an offhanded comment about her color beginning to come back. She looked away, embarrassed.

"We want you to be healthy," he reminded her.

"I am trying," she answered, extremely self-conscious of the way Tony was looking at her. She did her best to not return his melancholy gaze.

"This is really good steak, boss," Tony commented, trying to break the silence which had so quickly turned awkward. It was a largely new thing for the two of them, and both were obviously uncomfortable with this new dynamic or lack thereof. Ziva could not stop herself from looking across the table at him as he spoke the words. "What'd you season it with?" He punctuated his sentence by waving his sharp steak knife at the food on his plate, and she cringed. He noticed, and she could read his dejection in the slump of his shoulders. He stood, gathering his plates and walking to the kitchen to place them on the sink. Behind Gibbs's head, she saw him brace himself on the countertop, his head hanging as he took a deep breath. Guilt flooded her, and she hated that with everything she had to deal with she also had to add _this_ to the list. But even still, despite what she had suffered, she did not like to see him in pain because of her.

One minute he was a knife-wielding sadist, and she was terrified; and the next he was her old partner that she remembered more about by the minute, and she was guilt-ridden. It was dizzying. Once again she was torn between two realities, only one of which could be truth.

And, honestly, with every nightmare she was becoming more and more doubtful that this was it.

Tony left early that night, and she was under no illusions that it was for any reason but her. The tension between them, created by his new—and now shattered—expectations and her lingering fear, was palpable and made every word strained, every motion uncomfortable. She was not sure how they had gotten here, especially remembering how damn _easy_ it had been to nestle into his open arms last night. Her late-night, sleep deprived desperation for comfort after such an abhorrent nightmare certainly had something to do with why she'd had no trouble letting him so very close. But it was ruining them, bit by bit, because her fears and needs were different during the day. She could see how discouraged he was, and she really should have known better than to give him false hope.

She sat in the basement with Gibbs after Tony left and night fell. She watched him build his boat and drink away his sorrows, and there was something strangely comfortable and familiar about it. Perhaps she needed to take up a hobby, something other than staring at walls and books and squirrels. Something productive, something to _build_.

"Why do you build boats?" she asked, breaking the customary silence of his basement hideaway.

He swallowed a finger of bourbon. "Gives me something for my hands to do."

She looked down at the two blue, plaster prisons with chagrin.

"You need something to keep your hands busy?"

She glowered at him over the four-by-four he was marking. "My hands do not _work, _Gibbs."

"Your thumbs do," he reminded her. "And it's not forever. Just two more weeks."

"And then weeks more of rehab before I can even move them." Her expression was sour.

"You break your fingers before?"

She scowled at his wording—_she_ had not broken anything. The memory of her shock and agony at Tony's first act of violence made her stomach roil. "Yes," she answered anyhow.

"Operation gone wrong?"

She heaved a sigh, remembering in a distant life being pinned against a brick wall in a dark alley in Budapest. "Something like that," she answered lowly. It was all so fuzzy. She remembered little. Everything seemed to have been drowned in the infinite well of traumatic memories from the past three months.

"We'll find you something to do," he promised, and went back to marking the beam. It was only when he took out the saw blade that she decided to leave. The serrated blade sent shivers of fear down her spine. She hobbled up the two flights of stairs, powered through her arduous nighttime routine, and crawled under the covers.

_I will not go back there tonight,_ she tried to steel herself.

But she did, and once again she woke up in a crumpled heap on the hot concrete. She gasped, shocked by the instant revival of pain over every inch of her body. She was sprawled out in the center of the cell, the baking sunlight streaming in through the dusty window and landing on her battered and grimacing face. It illuminated her bare and bleeding body.

It was a few minutes before the door opened and Tony stepped through. She refused to meet his gaze, keeping her eyes fixed on the spot of the ceiling directly above her. The footsteps approached and soon she could see him in her peripheral vision, and he began circling her like the snake of her hallucinations all those weeks ago. She had gone from hallucinating single reptiles to hallucinating entire worlds. Whether it was real or not, she could only imagine what Saleem was putting in that serum.

"So you're just gonna ignore me, Zee-_vah_?"

She shuddered involuntarily, but still stared straight ahead.

"The silent treatment doesn't work on me. I'm too… persistent." He punctuated the last word with a lazy kick at her limp shin. She sucked in a breath as the tip of his shoe hit her bruised skin.

He walked around to her side and crouched down next to her. She blinked.

"So, how's Hallucination-Me doing? I assume he's there, since you're always so desperate to believe _I'm_ not real. What's he up to?" He looked at her expectantly, but she did not look at him and kept her cracked mouth shut. "Is he gentle? I bet he's gentle. And kind," Tony mocked. He reached out and swept a bloody curl from her face, tucking it behind her ear with a dark smile on his face. "You're fooling yourself, sweetcheeks. It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic." With a chuckle, he tapped her cheek, hard enough that she flinched and it stung even after his hand had moved down from her face. It trailed down her neck, across her shoulder, down her arm. The old cigarette welts burned as he passed over them. His hand stopped on her jutting hipbone, and she tried to bite back the horror. Memories of whiskey stained breath, lust-filled eyes, and a terrible kind of pain forced their way up her throat and she gagged. He raised an eyebrow.

"Don't worry, that was a one-time thing. I was drunk." He brushed his thumb over her bony waist, and he leaned down to bring his mouth near her ear. "Between you and me, it's not much fun when you don't cooperate. Not compared to how it used to be…"

She shook with rage and disgust. "I am sorry you did not _enjoy yourself,_" she hissed, and as he pulled away she managed to gather enough moisture in her mouth to spit in his face. It hit just below his eye and slid down his cheek. He almost looked amused as he wiped it away. His eyes, however, quickly darkened, and soon he'd pinned her arms above her head. She struggled, wrists searing as the scabbing wounds reopened.

"Keep fighting, Ziva," he challenged, voice dangerous. "It won't make any difference. I own you."

Her chest was heaving with exertion as she bucked her hips and tried to pull her arms loose. She managed to pull her left wrist out from under his hand and jab him in the neck. He quickly recovered and pinned it back again, expression darkening. He shoved his knee up to the tender spot between her legs and swung his free fist violently up into her stomach. The air left her lungs with an _oof, _and she screwed her eyes shut against the pain. The blows together were hard enough to be debilitating, and her body convulsed as it tried in vain to double over. Knowing she had been subdued, he let go of her arms.

She tried to breathe through the pain. Her eyes tightened and she took gasping breaths, wild hands reaching out as she momentarily forgot that they would not find help. She felt him grabbing her shoulders and struggled despite the pain. She was _angry,_ dammit.

So she fought back, yanking her arms away from him and swinging out with heavy and aching hands. She felt her hand collide with his face, harder than she'd thought herself capable of. She heard him suck in a pained breath and his hands were suddenly gone.

It was then she realized that she was back in Gibbs's house. She was lying on the edge of the bed, chest heaving and casted hands held protectively above her. It took her eyes a moment to adjust from the bright cell to this dark room, but soon she could make out Gibbs leaning against the wall, one hand over his left eye.

"Ziver?" he asked in a soft voice. "You awake?"

She sucked in a shuddering breath, eyes roving dizzily around the room. "Yes," she whispered back. She sat up, ignoring the pain in her back.

"Still got a mean right hook, David," he joked, but his attempt at a joke fell flat.

"I need…" she was still panting. She shook her head, standing on wobbly legs. "I need some air."

She stumbled down the stairs, leaning with her elbows on the railing, and felt her way through the dark house to the back door. The summer night was chilly. The cool breeze found its way into her blazing heart and her shoulders slumped. She sat down on the steps of his back porch, resting her head to the side against the railing and trying to pull in deep, even breaths of the fresh nighttime air.

Gibbs, of course, was only a few minutes behind her. He came out with a bag of peas held against his eye and sat down next to her. He was silent as usual, waiting for her to make the first move.

"Is it bad?" she asked, still staring straight out into the night. In her peripheral vision she saw him shrug.

"You tell me." He pulled the bag back to reveal a red and already swollen bit of skin under his eye. It was scraped diagonally, from where the rough material of her cast had skinned him. She sighed, and did not answer.

"I called DiNozzo," he informed her ever-so-casually, and at first it did not register but it only took moments for her eyes to widen and the protest to form on her lips.

"No."

He cocked an eyebrow. "No?"

"Call him back. I do not need him."

"Maybe not _need,_ but he's been good for you these past few days."

"All they have caused him is pain, Gibbs," she answered, voice low and dark.

"I don't think he really cares."

"You saw him today. He does. It is hurting him, hurting _us._"

"I don't get how progress can hurt you," Gibbs challenged.

"I cannot let him so close after nightmares only to push him away the next time I see him! It makes it too… too complicated."

He raised the eyebrow on the good side of his face. "Complicated for who?"

"For both of us! We cannot keep flipping back and forth like this! One minute I can fall asleep on his chest and the next I can't even look at him when he's taking off a jacket or holding a freaking _steak knife._" She shook her head, looking utterly miserable. "I am confused enough as it is. We can only hurt each other."

Gibbs was stern. "He's tough, Ziva. You won't hurt him."

"And so are you! But look at what happened!"

"It's a scratch," he countered.

"It does not matter."

He frowned. "So that's what you're afraid of? That you'll take a swing at him and give him a black eye?"

"No_,_" she insisted.

"Then what _are_ you afraid of?"

"I don't _know!_" she shot back, face crumbling. God, she was afraid of so many things. Him hurting her, her hurting him. This world not being real. Syringes and serums. Pain. Doing this the wrong way. That Tony would give up. That this mess wasn't fixable, that _she_ wasn't fixable.

She wanted to bury her face in her hands, but they were trapped in plaster prisons. She was just so confused.

Next to her, Gibbs sighed and stood up, pulling his cellphone from his pocket.

"I'll give Tony a call," he conceded, leaving her alone in the night to ponder the world whose very foundations were collapsing around her.

**. . .**

"What do you mean she doesn't want me to come?" Tony demanded into the phone wedged between his ear as he started the car.

"_You gonna make me repeat myself, DiNozzo_?" Gibbs growled.

"She needs me there and you know it."

"Right now she needs you to respect her wishes."

Tony pulled the key from the ignition and took the phone in his hand, leaning his head back against the headrest. "She's not thinking straight."

"Doubt she's thought straight in months, Tony. Not with them scrambling her head like that." There was less gruffness in Gibbs's voice. He sounded exhausted.

"Why now, Boss? What happened?"

"Woke her from a nightmare that was getting pretty bad and she decked me. Hard to tell what's going on in her head right now."

"What did she tell _you?_"

Gibbs huffed into the receiver. "That she needs some space." Tony heard the distinctive sound of feet on rickety basement steps. Heading down to drink and sand away his problems, the younger agent supposed.

"I thought she wanted me there," Tony admitted lowly. "But then with how she acted today…"

"She needs to sort through some things on her own. This isn't permanent. She's just overwhelmed."

"Yeah, I guess I'd be, too," he ceded. "But you're sure, then? That she's not…"

"Not what?"

Tony took a deep breath. "Giving up?" Across town, Gibbs barked a laugh.

"Yeah right, DiNozzo. And when have you ever known Ziva to give up on anything?" Gibbs had a good point. Tony shifted the phone to his other ear.

"I don't know what to expect anymore. She's so… different."

"Well yeah. You'd be too if someone had been torturing you and pumping you full of drugs for three months. She's going to be different." Question is, are you prepared to deal with that?"

Tony ran a hand down his face, inhaling deeply. "I have to be, don't I?"

"Damn straight." The older man paused, the silence filled with the sound of sandpaper on wood. "She's still Ziva," he added in a lower voice. Tony detected a fierce undercurrent of protectiveness in his boss's voice.

"I know," Tony promised, and the protectiveness mirrored in his words as well. They both loved this woman, that much was clear. "I want her to be okay. I want _us…_" He fell away mid-sentence, but Gibbs understood.

"You gotta work for it."

"Whatever it takes."

Pensive silence, then, "I'll try to talk to her tomorrow. For now, though…"

"Stay away. Yeah. I got it boss," he grumbled, stepping out of his car and into the cool night. "Keep me updated." With that he flicked the phone shut.

He trudged back up to his apartment, all the while attempting to resign himself to the fact that he would not be seeing her tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day… perhaps even longer than that. He knew how stubborn she could be, how sure of herself and what she deemed the "right" path. She was hardheaded, and not even months of debilitating torture could change that inherent fact of her personality. She had shut him out far too many times in the past in favor of taking the path her father, training, and past told her was the righteous one, so naturally he was wary of this decision.

His desire to hold her was very nearly crippling. There was no denying the surge of joy he'd felt when he had identified Gibbs on the caller ID. It was a selfish joy, to be certain. A call from Gibbs meant she'd had a nightmare, which in turn meant she was reliving excruciating suffering. But the idea of being able to hold her again—the idea that she _wanted_ him to hold her—was intoxicating and sent his stomach into somersaults. And of course, that only made this all the more difficult.

He fell asleep on the couch with a bottle in his hand, thinking only of her.


	5. Chapter 5

**. . .**

**Part V**

**. . .**

There had been no more sleep for her that night. Gibbs, likely sensing her need for space, had not returned after going back inside to call off Tony. She stayed most of the night on his back porch, bandaged body leaned up against the railing post, staring at the stars.

When she was a child, her mother had introduced her to the pleasure of stargazing. They would go to visit her sister in the countryside, and they would spend nights laying on their backs on a blanket spread across the rolling grass. The blanket smelled of jasmine and her mother's perfume, the air faintly of oranges. They would count the stars and connect them to form pictures of animals. Tali, once she was old enough to understand the game, had a more wild imagination than her mother or sister. She invented new creatures and personified them. _Zivvie, look, there! A lion-snake with horns like a hippo! _Or, _a jealous frog dancing the tango!_ Rivka and Ziva would look at one another and chuckle, but would humor her by muttering _hmm, yes, I see, Talileh._

There had been no stars for Ziva in Somalia. For the first few months, she'd been zip-tied to a chair with her back to the only window, and she could not see the sun or the moon or the stars. It was really only the last of these that she longed for. The sun and moon were ordinary, always the same two lonely objects engaged in an age-long dance. But the stars—they numbered in the billions, all different in size and luminescence, arranged in a dizzying pattern that told stories of kings and warriors and mothers lying with their daughters in the countryside. Ziva did not believe in astrology. At the time, she did not even believe in God. But she believed in the dancing, envious frog, and in the chimeric creatures of her dead sister's imagination. In those months of dehumanizing torture, she longed to see the stars.

Then he'd cut the plastic from her wrists to replace it with a metal chain, strung her up, shredded her clothes and skin, and when he was finished, cut her down. She had hit the floor with a hollow, deadened clanging noise and a hallow, gargled gasp.

And from that spot on the ground, she could see the stars.

But she did not look. She could no longer bear to remember the life she'd once had, the life she'd lost. She did not want to remember that she'd had a mother and a sister, as well as a brother and a father. They were all dead, except one, and him especially she did not want to remember; not when he had so obviously forgotten her.

More than this, however, she did not want to look at the stars because she did not want to see beauty. The world she belonged to was a forsaken one of knives, fire, and endless suffering. That, at least, she could accept. But that even in this place there was beauty to be found was an idea she wanted no part of. To admit the inexplicable wonder of the heavens would mean admitting to herself that there was something, some_one,_ more, for such amazing things could not exist on their own. She did not want that.

Because if this Someone was real, then that meant they were letting this happen to her. They were letting her body and soul be pummeled, sliced, burned, drowned, defiled. This Someone was allowing their daughter, a little girl of twenty-six that wanted only to be a ballerina and to be _loved_, to be destroyed slowly. Violently. Completely.

And no, she did not want to believe this—so she did not look at the stars.

But that night, sitting alone on the wooden steps of Gibbs's back porch, the memory of the recent nightmare crawling along her goose-pimpled skin, she allowed herself to look at the stars. Surprisingly, she did not feel the ache of abandonment of either God or her family. But she did feel very, very small. Her tragic story was only one of billions painted in the constellations. She was sure that if Tali were here she could have picked Ziva's out—_Zivvie, look, it's a grieving girl singing a lullaby to her freshly-murdered brother,_ or better yet, _ooh, a scared woman trapped in a locked room—look, there she is being stripped of her humanity. _But Tali alone could have done this. Ziva herself lacked the imagination, and so her story was hopelessly lost in the multitudes.

Looking at the stars, this world certainly felt real. The sheer expansiveness of it all should alone have been enough for her to be sure of its existence. This world was too complex to be a figment of her drug-encouraged imagination, especially considering it had been decided that hers had never been very strong to begin with. But then again, she had always been good at copying. She studied and emulated. She could draw when she was regurgitating real life, could sing when it was the songs of others, could act so long as she had someone specific to portray. She spent her life observing and imitating. She would see Ari executing a move in training that brought a sparkle of approval to her father's eyes and stay up all night practicing to get it just right so that she could have that little sparkle, too. Imitation was her specialty, and so who was to say that she did not create this haven of a world to perfectly reflect reality?

Because this world, this porch and cool, star-speckled night, felt real without a doubt, but she could still feel his disgusting hands roaming down her side. Her stomach and ribs and area between her legs still ached from the force of his spiteful blows. Her ears still rang from his filthy words. And when she thought of Tony that night, she saw not her gentle-eyed comforter but her wicked-eyed abuser. Green flames glinted and danced and sent her mind scurrying away, away, away from the terrible memory, and from any memory that included him. The remembrance of soothing touches gave way to cruel ones, bowing in the face of such certain evil. They scattered and left her feeling so very alone.

She was torn between two worlds, two Tony's, two existences. That night, under the stars, she felt the rift between them widen beneath her, and she knew that if she did not pick one side or the other soon she would be swallowed whole.

And she knew which one she would prefer, but the preference of a forsaken one meant nothing.

**. . .**

She had to go back to the hospital the next afternoon. It had been a full week since she'd been discharged, and she was due for a checkup. She was not pleased to be returning to this labyrinth of a place, with its white-washed walls and stench of bleach that would linger on her clothes for hours after they left. This much, at least, was clear in her closed-off attitude and distant stare as she was ushered into a room to be checked over by Dr. Sellers.

She did not appreciate being in such a state of undress, alone in a small room with a man she'd only met a few times. Vulnerability was an emotional constant in her life, and without the shell of clothing it grew to magnificent and crippling proportions. Her weak limbs trembled and breathing turned shallow and the answers to his polite questions died somewhere between her mind and her tongue. But he was not pushy and always asked permission before removing any bandages or prodding any wounds, and this coupled with the stark, white cleanliness of the room around her at least kept flashbacks at bay.

She did not pay attention to more than the fact that he found nothing of concern. The infection was long cleared up and her wounds were healing nicely. They expected to remove the casts in two weeks, and while she was grateful to have a certain date she still thought it too long. They were cumbersome and their restrictive nature reminded her far too easily of the things she was trying hardest to forget. To her, a woman who was used to days elongated by endless torture, two weeks was extremely distant. Two weeks was fourteen cigarettes ground into her forearm, leaving a searing burn and ashes flecked on her ashen skin. Two weeks was twenty-eight needles jabbed into the crook of her elbow and twenty-eight doses of fiery, fearful serum coursing through her veins. It was innumerable insults and countless liters of hot blood spilled onto the dusty floor. It was infinite wishes for death.

Two weeks was a long time.

After Dr. Sellers had finished checking over her body, she was ushered into the office of the woman who would check over her mind. Gibbs stayed as a strong presence by her side as they were escorted through the long, disorienting hallways. Their footsteps echoed on the tile floors. She shivered, suddenly cold in this unwelcoming atmosphere.

Dr. Herron's office had a mahogany desk with two armchairs set in front of it for visitors. In the corner was a long couch and a low coffee table, which was where the doctor indicted Ziva should sit when she entered. Gibbs grunted that he'd be waiting in the hallway.

The door shut behind him and she could feel anxiety swirling torrentially in her stomach as she was once again left alone in a room with a person who wanted to make her talk. The worn storm-shutters slammed shut around her vocal chords and her beaten soul.

"You look a lot better, Ziva," Dr. Herron began.

Such a statement surprised Ziva. She wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping, wasn't doing anything more than stare idly at the fragile world around her. It said a lot about how she must have looked before. She remembered the occasional glimpses of her reflection she'd caught since her rescue, how well her ghostly outward appearance had mirrored how she felt on the inside. Broken. Skeletal. Dull.

"How is staying at Gibbs's? He's treating you well?"

She gave a clipped nod. "It is fine." Dr. Herron cocked her head.

"You're sure? Because if anything's wrong all you have to do is let me know. I want you to be in the best environment for getting better as possible."

There were plenty of things wrong, of course, but these things could not be fixed by the likes of a psychiatrist, if by anyone at all.

"How is your anxiety?" the doctor continued to prod. Once again, Ziva gave her canned response she'd been using since adolescence, when her father taught her the importance of never admitting pain.

"It is fine."

"Fine?" The doctor called her on it. "What is 'fine'?"

Ziva looked down at her trapped hands. "Manageable."

"That doesn't tell me anything."

She ground her teeth together, trying to ignore the ache that still lingered after so many electric shocks.

"I do not _need_ to tell you anything."

And so she didn't, but not for lack of trying on her doctor's part. After months of torture and a lifetime of _I am fine'_s, Ziva was an expert at staying silent. In that hour, she did not do more than assure the doctor that her placement at Gibbs's was not a mistake. She was uncomfortable, yes, but she could not imagine anywhere else would be better.

The doctor tried to prescribe her anxiety medication, but Ziva would not have it. She was not about to introduce more drugs into her body, especially not ones that would change her behavior or alter her mental state.

"Ziva, you have PTSD. We need to come up with a treatment plan."

"I am fine. I do not need medication. I will deal with this on my own, yes?"

"You don't _have_ to. We can help. The meds can help—"

"No."

And that was that.

In the entire session with the doctor, Ziva did not mention Tony or the conflict that had erupted within her at his reappearance into her life. She did not mention that she'd fallen asleep in his arms twice, and punched Gibbs once. She did not mention their confusing relationship and her constant and horribly simultaneous desires to have him both very close and as far away as possible. She did not mention the nightmares.

And she most definitely did not mention that a growing part of her thought they were real.

**. . .**

Abby came again that night. Ziva had had her bandages changed at the hospital, but she was still in dire need of a shower. The raven-haired woman was even quieter than she had been a few days ago, not saying a word until she had stripped, washed, and re-bandaged her charge. Finally, as she was sliding the pajama top over Ziva's head, she spoke.

"Why are you pushing Tony away?"

Ziva sucked in a breath as his name fell on her ears and brought instant memories of malicious grins and groping fingers. She should have known that there was a reason behind Abby's silence.

"It is complicated," Ziva answered in a low voice as she placed her legs into the pants her friend held out.

"Define complicated."

Ziva's face puckered. "I cannot, Abby, is that not the purpose of the word?"

"So you really don't have a reason?"

"_Because_ it is complicated," Ziva clarified. Abby raised an eyebrow, reaching out to help Ziva stand so she could pull up the pants and tie the drawstring in a neat little bow.

"Everything's complicated."

Ziva swallowed and frowned, shifting the subject. "So how do you know about this?" Abby smirked.

"Tony does a lot of drunk dialing, remember?"

Ziva didn't remember. There was a lot about the past four years, and him specifically, that she was having trouble digging out and dusting off. "He was drunk?"

"He's been drunk a lot since you came home."

And there it was, that terrible stab of guilt resurging in her chet. Abby left no room for guesses—he was drowning himself in alcohol because of _her_ and no one else.

Ziva let Abby tuck her into bed, feeling strangely like a child. She felt a rare but powerful longing for her mother. She looked out the window, but couldn't see any stars.

Abby left practically on tiptoe, and in her place came the insistent pull of sleep. The session with Dr. Herron had exhausted her. It took so much more effort now to keep her emotions inside than it had used to. In the dark room and soft bed, she did not stand a chance in her battle against unconsciousness.

She lost readily, and woke up in Somalia.

Tony was not alone this time, and when Saleem entered alongside him she thought she would vomit. But there was nothing in her stomach because they had not fed her in four days, so all that came out was a muted retching noise.

She blinked, thinking she was seeing double. The two stood shoulder to shoulder, cargo pants and keffiyeh alongside a spotless business suit and shiny black shoes. Her fingers and toes went cold as her terrified body pulled the blood from her extremities. They approached, flanking her on either side. She wanted to disappear into the ground, to turn to dust or ash, anything but be here between these two horrible men.

Saleem squatted and took a long puff from his cigarette, rolling it between his destructive fingers as he exhaled. He blew the smoke in her face and she choked.

"It has been a while, Little Ziva," he cooed. He punctuated the sentence by grinding the burning end of the cigarette on her breast. She sucked in a breath through her teeth. "My serums are serving you well, I hear." He sent Tony a conspiratorial glance across her prone body. She looked up at the ceiling, squeezing her eyes shut, wanting back into her world of dreams where Tony would hold her with steady, gentle arms.

But instead this was her reality, a world where Tony pinned her arms to her sides and straddled her legs, trapping her under him. She struggled, and his fingers tightened painfully around her shredded wrists. She did not notice Saleem get up and return with a bucket of water and a dirty towel.

Together they water boarded her, Tony holding her convulsing, terrified body while Saleem poured and poured warm liquid onto her covered face. The sensation of drowning on land was horribly familiar, but no matter how many times she suffered it she could not keep the terror from her heart and the desperate gasps for oxygen from her lips.

She fought hard, but she was outnumbered and weak. She did not know how long she drowned before she opened her eyes and it was not the damp darkness of a towel but the empty darkness of her room at Gibbs's. And there he was, just like the night before, fending off her wild and struggling arms. She sucked in a lungful of air, wincing as broken ribs ached, and tried to ground herself in the present.

"You good?" Gibbs asked. She nodded weakly, head and eyes lolling.

"Yes," she sputtered, coughing up phantom water.

"Need anything?"

She shook her head. "No. I am fine." But he knew better, so he kept on.

"Sure as hell don't look fine."

"Then that is my problem, yes?" she snapped. The look on his face told her he did not take it personally. She glanced down and realized he still had her casted hands secured in his, and with a sigh, she decided on her next words. "You should not wake me up anymore."

"Why's that?" he asked, humoring her. She eyed his bruised face sourly, and he must have noticed. "Oh, come on. You gotta stop beating yourself up over that. It wasn't a big deal."

"Please, Gibbs? Respect my wishes? Promise me you will stop waking me up."

He cocked an eyebrow. "You're crying out pretty loudly in your sleep. Not gonna be easy to ignore."

"Well then _try._"

He heaved a sigh. "That's a pretty tall order, Ziva."

"I need to learn to deal with these on my own, yes?"

"That what this is about? That God-awful Mossad attitude you've got? That's not how these things work and you know it."

Her lip curled. "_These _things? What do you know about what I am facing?"

"You forgetting I was a soldier too, David? I had a lot of friends with PTSD."

She growled. "I do not have PTSD."

"Oh yeah?" he challenged. "Then what do you call this? The hypervigilance, anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks—"

"Stop."

"You have PTSD. But that's not something you've gotta be ashamedof. Hell, I'd be concerned if you _didn't_ have it. This would've killed any lesser person."

"I wish it had killed me."

The air in the room froze, and for a moment no one breathed. Gibbs stared at her, the expression in his eyes slowly moving from shock to fear to determination. She wondered idly how many of his buddies had lost their battle with the memories.

"Don't say that," he demanded.

"It is not a lie."

"Ziva, it's over now. They're dead, all of them. It's safe—you can only get better from here."

Any retort she'd been considering died in her throat. His words wrapped around her head and she floundered.

"Saleem is dead?" She could see the complete disbelief flicker across his face.

"No one's told you that?" She shook her head, and he continued. "What did you think happened to him?"

"I did not think about it," she almost whispered, mind reeling. She really had not given a thought to his fate, as she had not seen him since the beginning of the third month. Gibbs's mouth set into a hard line.

"He's dead, Ziva. I shot him myself."

This was definitely news to her, and the sudden but strong desire for vengeful details swelled in her aching chest. She swallowed.

"Where did… I mean, did he…?"

Gibbs cocked an eyebrow. "Suffer?"

Ziva nodded.

"Not enough," he answered with a sigh.

She tried to hide her disappointment.

"Wish I could've given him what he deserved. For what he did to you. A bullet to the head was… too quick."

She nodded, unable to find the words. Yes, it was too quick. This man had ruined her life, taken a confident soldier and turned her into… this. In the early days, she'd fantasized about murdering him a thousand different ways. She fantasized about returning to him tenfold every moment of pain he'd inflicted upon her. It was how she coped, when all else there was to think about was her abandonment and agony.

But as time progressed, there was less room for such violent thoughts. Hate and desire for vengeance were not passive emotions, and eventually she could not gather the strength necessary to imagine the ways she would punish him for his sins against her body and mind.

Even now, she could not find within herself the hatred of those early days.

"It is okay," she finally whispered. "I want to move on."

He smiled gently and leaned forward, pressing a delicate, father-like kiss to her forehead. "Proud of you."

She frowned. "Tony said that, too." Gibbs just shrugged.

"There's a lot to be proud of."

And though she couldn't believe it, there was a part of her who desperately wanted to—so she did not object.

**. . .**

It did not take long for the nightmares to consume her. Inevitable from the moment Gibbs agreed to call off Tony, they sunk their venomous teeth into her arm and dragged her down, down, down, away from the world she wanted so desperately to believe in. They pulled her into the darkness with them, a familiar darkness filled with despair and empty of hope. There they made her their slave.

This did not happen all at once. It started with that seed of doubt that took root the second night back at Gibbs's house, the night she'd first been ripped from this world of soft, grey sweatshirts and comforting touches and thrown back into the body of the withering woman lying prone on the desert floor. Life was breathed back into her long-suffering soul and from then on she would not stay silent, would not stop crying out through the barrier that separated a terror camp in Somalia from a suburban home in Virginia. Even in Ziva's waking hours she could hear that woman's pleas, and recognized them as her own.

That woman's cries possessed her, seized her heart and encouraged the doubt flourishing in her chest. The one who lay forgotten in the dirt like a dog pleaded with the one who had been rescued, begging to be heard and understood.

_You cannot ignore me, Ziva!_ she would call out whenever silence fell in the white-trimmed house. _My pain is yours!_

Ziva only tried harder to push the nightmares from her mind, keeping busy with books and television that only half held her attention. Gibbs noticed her desire to _do_ something, and one day pulled a thousand-piece puzzle from the top shelf in his living room. It was in a plastic bag and had no picture to accompany it, with enough dust accumulated on top that it could feasibly have not been touched in years. With only her thumbs free just manipulating the pieces was a struggle, but it gave her something to work towards. Still, when her mind would drift, there would be the nightmares and the desert-woman's rasping, desperate voice seeping through the cracks in the wall she'd built to segregate that world from this one. The wall was crumbling, and she could not keep the woman out.

_You can hide all you want, but do not let yourself be fooled,_ she cautioned. _Do not fall for their trick, or it will destroy us both._

Then night would fall, and she _was_ that woman. She was the desperate and defiled one, the one that slept in the dust and believed the arid cell around her real. It was hard, when the pain was so acute, to believe anything else. When he towered over her, broke her bones, and burned and scored her skin, she did not doubt the words he whispered in her ear. There was no room for doubt when her body and soul were in flames; it shriveled and blew away as ashes on a desert wind. All that survived in the blaze were his assurances that this world was truth.

And then she would wake in a quiet, dark room, and there would be no one to tell her otherwise.

The night terrors seized her bit by bit, eroding this world she had been growing used to. The darkness swallowed Tony first—it wasn't long before she could no longer recall what his face looked like absent of malice. Whenever she tried, the desert-woman would scream from inside of her. _No! Do not trust him! Look what he has done to me! _And his gentle, encouraging smile would disappear in seconds, replaced by one that held only cruelty and morbid excitement. The dark crept in at the woman's beck and call.

Next, the darkness swallowed Gibbs, because he cared about her and that made the forgotten woman furious. Gibbs made sure that she ate and brushed her teeth, that she didn't fall down the stairs in the morning. With the puzzle, he made sure she had something to do to keep herself busy and the nightmares out. He was quiet and stoic and he took care of her. It was too good to be true, so the woman with darkness nipping eagerly at her heels took him away, as well.

After that, it started on the house. Somalia leaked through in her peripheral vision. She'd think she saw scorpions on the mantle, sand on the bathroom tile, blood stains on the couch. The wall was crumbling and this world was bleeding into the other. The world of her rescue was disintegrating, and though she tried to stop it, the fine grains just seeped through the cracks of her fingers and fell strewn about on the blood-coated floor of the other woman's—_her_—cell in the Horn of Africa.

"You're comin' around, huh?" he asked the fourth time she returned to the desert after banishing the person who had been her only comfort.

"Stop this, Tony, please," she whispered as he knelt down next to her.

"I'm having fun, though."

"You are not Tony."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Then who is?"

She knew she had an answer to that. She knew that somewhere in her mind was the answer to that question. But although it felt like it was on the tip of her tongue, the only image of Tony DiNozzo she could conjure up was a carbon copy of the man kneeling above her and grinding his knuckles into a week-old bruise on her side. She knew there was something more than this, she _knew,_ but she could not remember.

With horror, she realized why this sensation felt familiar—it was like trying to describe a dream that faded rapidly the more she thought about it. Lying there below him and grunting in pain, she feared that the elusive idea had faded from her memory forever. There was only _him._

She woke when he injected her to a dark and half disintegrated world. She was alone. There was no one sitting at her side, no one backed against the wall clutching his face, no tentative silhouette in the doorway.

Alone.

She yearned for comfort and reassurance, but she moved through this grey and barren world like a ghost. She was unreachable to all but the woman in her mind that insisted this world was a hallucination.

_The moment you believe it they will rip it from you… and you will be ruined._

"I am already ruined," Ziva whispered, and out of the corner of her eye she saw someone move. A man with silver hair stood in the other room and said something, but he was obscured by the thickening darkness that insulated her from his words.

And it happened relatively quickly, in the span of a few days, but eventually the darkness swallowed her, as well. The nightmares barked at her heels and dragged her back to a world where a man with mossy green eyes could inflict untold horrors upon the body of a woman he'd once cherished. Without anyone to comfort her and discredit them when she woke, the nightmares turned to black ash the world of compassion that had been her haven. They brought her to the miserable woman who waited every day for death, who had cried out to Ziva until the wall between their worlds lay in ruins, and united them in one ravaged body.

In those few days without him, she was lost completely to the desert.

**. . .**

Tony could not stare at her empty desk any longer. He had been doing paperwork all morning, fighting off yet another hangover by sipping on the infamous DiNozzo Defibrillator. Luckily, Vance had had enough sense to pull the MCRT from rotation for a few weeks following their little East African escapade. Gibbs himself had taken two weeks personal leave to care for Ziva, understanding all too well the emotional consequences of extreme trauma. Tony wasn't sure if it was guilt that drove the man, if he blamed himself for his role in Ziva's fate, but he knew that, whatever the case, Gibbs felt responsible for the broken woman. When he wasn't being selfish, Tony was glad that Ziva could trust Gibbs enough to let him close. She needed someone to be there for her, and while he wanted to desperately for that someone to be him, his boss and her pseudo-father was the next best thing.

Even though they were off rotation, there were still cold cases to be investigated and paperwork to be filled. For the most part, it helped distract him from her, to keep his mind away from the images it seemed to want so masochistically to recall to at every opportunity. Her skeletal body, terrified eyes, the way she both cowered from him and sunk into his embrace. He craved them like a drowning man craves air, but this was air that, once inhaled, burned painfully inside his lungs. To keep the temptation away, he buried himself in beer cans by night and paperwork by day.

But then he would glance up, if only momentarily, and see her empty desk, and it would all get shot to hell. Sometimes he would hear the elevator ding and look up, half expecting her to stroll in with wild curls framing her cheeks and a radiant smile on her face, to greet him with a playful, sing-song _hello, Tony. _It was never her, however, and looking at the sliding silver doors inevitably led his eyes to fall on her long-vacant desk.

He'd spent a good portion of the summer languishing over that desk. Its emptiness called to him, in the early days a reminder of his failure and her hatred, then later of his failure and her death. There was no Ziva at that desk, just like there was no Ziva in Washington, America, or the world, because the Damocles had gone down in a storm on the twenty-eighth of May and there were no survivors.

Now, its emptiness meant something else entirely. He looked at it and his heart filled with sorrow for what once was. He looked at it and remembered years of playful banter, his movie references countered by her butchered idioms and teasing threats of violence. He remembered their joking flirtations, even as far back as provocative slouching and Page 57. He remembered prank wars, both against each other and the man they affectionately called Probie. He remembered cases solved and not solved and all-nighters pulled here trying to decrease the number of the latter. He remembered containers of Chinese takeout stacked knee-high in her waste basket which now stood unlined and, like the desk, completely empty.

They had none of those things now—they'd all been destroyed in the whirlwind storm named Michael Rivkin last spring. Now it was fall and they were only just starting to pick up the pieces of their fractured and trampled lives.

Every time he looked up he saw her desk, and every time he saw her desk he was reminded of all they had lost. Here was a woman, stronger and more graceful than any he'd ever met, a fearless soldier with a fierce personality and compassionate heart. Here was a woman with a radiant sort of beauty that was beyond compare, a woman that could stand her own, that was not to be messed with. Here was a woman who was unshakably loyal, unbreakable.

_But oh, close your eyes, Tony, and fast forward—see the broken woman. See her fearful and hopeless eyes darting in her bruised and sunken sockets. See her ragged back from where they whipped her, her pock-marked stomach from where they used her as an ash tray, her crooked fingers from where they snapped the bones like toothpicks. See the noose she clutches so desperately in those ruined fingers, evidence of how completely they murdered her spirit. See the lines of unbearable suffering they carved into her face, hear the soft remnants of screams they coached from her bleeding lips. _

_And then, Tony, replace 'they' with 'you,' and remember that it was you that broke the unbreakable woman. _

Now she was a ghost, and in the days after she cast him away he could feel her lingering at her empty desk, near the vending machine in the break room, at the sinks in the men's bathroom. The woman who had once occupied those spaces, the partner who had been with him at countless crime scenes, in the interrogation room, between his sweat-drenched bed sheets… That woman was gone now. She'd been murdered, burnt up in the desert sun. From her ashes had risen a new Ziva David, one that was very much alive, but also very much forbidden to him. And so in those days he lived with her ghost so close that sometimes he thought he could feel her weary head resting on his chest.

It was late on a Wednesday, the tenth day since her release from the hospital and the fourth day since he was told to keep away, when the elevator doors opened and Gibbs stepped out. He watched his boss approach from over the vacant desk he'd come to hate so much. Gibbs gave him a nod and headed past him toward the staircase, disappearing into the office of the Man Upstairs and leaving Tony to wonder if Ziva was okay at Gibbs's by herself. He realized how preposterous a question that would have been merely months ago—_can the former assassin be left home alone?—_and scowled as he was once again reminded of all they'd lost. Swirling heat built in his chest. His eyes were fixed across the bullpen once again, and he could feel the anger swelling to accompany the sorrow.

He remembered how she'd looked when he found her in Somalia. Before that moment_,_ the last time they had spoken she'd pushed him to the ground and shoved a gun in his chest. She'd been furious, passionate, sparking.

Then they'd left and she'd died and he'd wanted to die, too, and eventually by some miracle he'd found her alive. But when he placed his shaking hand on her shoulder, she'd whimpered, cringed, and sobbed _get the hell away from me_ in a rasping voice that shattered his heart. The Ziva they'd left and the Ziva they'd found were irreconcilable. His blood boiled and eyes burned. He wanted to cry for all they had lost.

Gibbs finished up with Vance and came down the stairs, stopping briefly to gaze at the half-empty bullpen he hadn't reigned over in weeks. He must have noticed the quiet fury bubbling beneath Tony's skin, because he inclined his head toward the elevator in a motion that meant for his senior agent to follow him. Somehow, he'd known that Tony was on the verge of exploding.

He tailed Gibbs into the elevator, remembering all the times he had done so with her at his side. _Got a case, grab your gear,_ their boss would say, and they'd sling their agency-issue backpacks over their shoulders and fight over the van keys. They'd share the space in the small metal box, close enough that he could feel the air between them humming with comfortable tension. But now the tension between them was driven by distrust and fear, and Tony shared the elevator with Gibbs, who flicked the emergency stop and turned to face his senior agent with an expectant stare and folded arms. He leaned back against the railing, waiting.

Tony huffed. "What do you want me to say, Boss?"

"Whatever you've gotta say."

"That's a hell of a lot."

"Well you're gonna need to get it out at some point."

Tony swallowed dryly, wondering if the sand he felt coating his mouth was just his imagination. There was a part of him that felt like he was still in Africa, bloody and tied to a chair and itching to watch the life drain from the eyes of the man who took Ziva from him.

"Saleem is dead."

Gibbs looked at him quizzically but nodded. "Yup."

"You killed him. You shot him. In the head."

"Yup."

His boss's clipped, matter of fact answers had Tony seeing red in the blue-lit metal box.

"Death was instantaneous. He probably didn't even feel a damned thing," Tony accused, voice measured. When Gibbs responded, it was a warning.

"DiNozzo…"

"No!" Tony burst, slamming his palm against the handrail. The hollow sound radiated through the elevator car. Standing straight now, he raged on. "How is that fair, Gibbs?! The man who tortured Ziva, _our Ziva,_ to the edge of _insanity_, who spent an entire summer killing her slowly, purposefully…" He bared his teeth, furious. "He died painlessly! Instantly! Tell me how that is fair!"

Gibbs did not seem phased by the outburst. "It isn't." Tony threw his hands in the air, blatantly challenging the man he'd once been largely deferent to.

"And I'm supposed to just accept that?!"

"She has," the grey-haired man countered. "Or she wants to, at least."

"And you know that how?"

"She told me."

Tony didn't know who he was angry at—Ziva for wanting so uncharacteristically to forgive, Saleem for doing this to her, Gibbs for being the one she trusted while he remained in exile, or himself for allowing this to happen in the first place. Most likely, it was a violent brew of all four. He blinked and her fearful eyes flashed in front of his burning ones. At one time they had been fierce and determined, but now those coffee-brown irises were mere listless pools of uncertainty, confusion, and hurt. They swirled before him, taunting him with all that had been lost. He growled.

"That bastard took _everything_ from her! From _us!_" he cried. "How could she not want revenge?!"

"She's confused and hurting. She needs to heal. There's no room for vengeance right now."

Tony remembered years ago, a night during that distant summer when they'd gotten drunk together and said more than ever should have been said. She'd swallowed his whiskey and spit up a story about café bombings and dead little sisters and a quest for vengeance so all-consuming that it did not end until her hands were coated in the thick, dark blood of those responsible. She had not seemed proud of her actions, but neither had she been regretful. Justice had been delivered swiftly by a woman playing judge, jury, and executioner. Her baby sister had been murdered, and she wanted revenge. Tony had understood better then what kind of person the woman sitting half-naked on his suede couch had come to be.

But she was not that person anymore. She had been wronged in ways more painful, more deeply personal, more abhorrent than even Tony could possibly imagine. And yet, she did not feel the desire for vengeance that the Ziva he knew would have. She did not yearn to feel Saleem's blood coating her hands, to hear the screams of the man who had coaxed so many from her own lips. Perhaps it was because her tormenter was already dead, or perhaps because it was not Saleem she truly blamed for her suffering.

Tony, however, had enough fury coursing through his veins for the both of them.

"You didn't see her, Boss," Tony shook his head, grinding his teeth. "You didn't see what I saw when I found her in that cell."

"No," Gibbs agreed. "But I saw what happened after. I think I got a pretty good image."

"Oh, you do?" Tony scoffed, knowing it was wrong to take his anger out on Gibbs but not having anyone else to direct it at. "You know what it was like to find her curled up in a bloody ball against the wall, what it sounded like when I tried to pull her into my arms? That gargled scream, like I'd kicked her?" He was consumed by the memories, the images of her broken body that would stay with him forever. The metal box around him felt like a dirty cement cell as he recalled each and every wound that decorated her skin like a macabre art form. "I assume you know that they'd just raped her, then. That they didn't even bother cleaning up after themselves. That they tossed her aside like a cheap ragdoll when they finished with her." He remembered the bruises on her hips, the bite marks on her breasts, the revolting stickiness on her thighs. He felt like he would vomit on his own words, but he wasn't finished. He recalled crooked fingers and a twisted knot of bloody fabric. "I'm sure you know then, too, that she'd spent the past night trying to tie her ripped pants into a fucking _noose_ so she could hang herself from the hook on the wall. I'm sure you know how she held onto it so hard her fingers bled, like it was her last shred of hope," he snarled, lashing out with a ferocity even he hadn't expected. "I'm sure you know how she felt like a child in my arms. I'm sure you know it all. I'm sure you know exactly how it felt to find the woman you…" Tony trailed off, eyes cloudy.

Gibbs did not know what to say to that.

"No. You don't know," Tony continued, coming back to the present and jabbing a wild, accusatory finger into his boss's chest. "Otherwise you'd be just as pissed as I am that neither of us got to rip Saleem Ulman apart piece by piece."

A thick silence fell upon the two men in the elevator, to be pierced only by Gibbs's sharpening steel glare. Eventually, there were words.

"You think I don't get it?" Gibbs began in his trademark calm voice. "You think that every time she flinches or gets that look of complete _terror_ in her eyes that I don't wish it was different? That the first thought in my mind _isn't_ how much I wish Saleem could have suffered just a _fraction_ of the pain he inflicted on her?" Blue fire burned in the older man's eyes. "You think I don't wish I'd shot him somewhere where he'd have bled out slowly and painfully, where he'd have spent his last moments in agony and _know_ that it was because of what he did to Ziver?" The fire swelled, roared, and subsided once again. "Of course I wish he'd paid. Of course I wish we could have given him what he deserved. But you know what? _Life. Isn't. Fair._ And she doesn't need us to be angry. She needs us to help her heal and move on with her life."

Tony stood upright, taking in his mentor's words like blows. There was a dull ache as they hit him, but he let them spread across his prickling skin and sink into his body. They brought him down from his anger-driven high, reminded him that the man before him was not the enemy. Gibbs did not deserve his anger, and Tony knew he needed to check himself. The older man seemed to sense this shift, and continued.

"Look, you're angry and you should be. The woman you love's been tortured within an inch of her life. Your relationship's been destroyed. You've got a _right_ to be pissed. But anger isn't gonna help her," Gibbs promised. "It won't help either of you."

Tony swallowed. He could see so clearly the young woman who had swaggered into the bullpen on a rainy May morning, wild hair pulled back in a colorful scarf and a confident grin on her face. She had been barely more than girl at the time, but a girl who had seen enough to fill a dozen lifetimes. Still she was fearless, empowered, provocative, proud.

A far cry from the shaking skeleton of a woman who had collapsed into his arms a few nights ago.

"She's gone, Gibbs," he whispered in a voice that barely concealed his heartbreak. "The Ziva we knew isn't coming back."

Gibbs frowned. "That doesn't sound like you've got a lot of faith in her."

"I can't get my hopes up. I can't…" he sighed, running a hand through his already messy hair. "I don't know how to deal with the fact that I might never see her again."

The older man's blue eyes hardened. "Quit being selfish. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself when Ziva needs your help."

"She won't _let _me help!"

"She will eventually," Gibbs deadpanned. "And when she does, you sure as hell better not give her any clues this is how you feel. It sounds like you've given up on her, and that'll destroy any confidence and hope she's managed to build up."

Tony's eyes widened. "I'm not giving up on her!" he protested.

"Got that impression."

"Look, I just… I just need to grieve, okay? Because I know she'll heal, but she'll be different. There's no going back to how things were… before. I'm having some trouble coming to terms with that, is all. I'm not going anywhere, though. I still…" Tony swallowed. "It's just different."

"Things'll be different for a while. Maybe forever. You think you can deal with that? 'Cause if not, you better say so right now and spare her the broken heart."

"It's Ziva, Boss," Tony offered as his only explanation. It carried with it more meanings, deeper meanings, than any other combination of words could ever fully express. The older man had no trouble understanding. _Of course I can. For her, I can._

"Good," he nodded, flipping the emergency stop switch.

And that, as with so many conversations with Gibbs, was the end of that.

**. . .**

"You look terrible."

Abby's blunt words reached Ziva through the murky haze of setting darkness. The broken woman had been floating, living in a sort of limbo, since she woke up alone that morning in Gibbs's guest bed. She fully belonged neither to the suburbs nor the desert. She walked like a ghost through the hallways, trying to ignore the sandy cell that was bleeding into the painted walls and carpeted floors. Sometimes she thought she could hear the metallic screech of a knife being sharpened, the crack of a whip, or the foreboding, electric clicking of a cattle prod. Her old wounds throbbed. _It's not real,_ _Zee-vah,_ the voice would echo from behind her, but she'd whip around to find nothing but an empty room. _Hide all you want. I'll be here. Waiting._

She felt someone pulling at her clothing, and before she remembered Abby the panic flared in her chest. Even then it was barely abated, because it had been four days since she'd felt a kind touch, and with the things that were done to her when she closed her eyes, she had almost forgotten that such a thing existed.

"Are you okay, Ziva?"

_A stupid question,_ she judged. Her world of refuge had been engulfed in flames, turned to black ash and soot, the air clouded with acrid smoke. She was not okay, not when the only place left untouched by the flames was a world where she lay naked and vulnerable at the hands of a cruel man with piercing green eyes. The crumbling world she so desperately wanted to be reality was slipping away more with every second. Right now, it felt like the only thing keeping her tied to it was Abby's gentle hands. She had not realized how much she'd craved kindness.

"Ziva?" Abby prompted again, and the distant woman found herself being manipulated into a cool bathtub.

Ziva wanted to answer, but her voice must already have been relinquished to the woman of the desert, stolen by the darkness she wielded. Her tongue was dry and heavy in her mouth, and she could think of nothing to say. _Help me? Save me? Do not let go?_ Even she knew she was beyond saving, especially by an apparition such as Abby.

Water suddenly flowed down the back of her neck, and she'd been expecting it but at the same time she hadn't. In the other world, the waking world, a woman is drenched in water to allow the cattle prod to devastate her body more thoroughly. She screams silently, strangled by the current, and her body seizes and shakes.

"Ziva?! Ziva, what's going on? Are you okay?"

It was difficult to differentiate between reality and hallucination, and the Ziva in the fantasy world felt so clearly the pain of the woman in the waking world. Soon, the former could feel the gentle hands on her once again, and she remembered the tub in the bathroom in the house in Virginia that had burned and whose ashes were being blown away on a desert wind. She buried herself in them, in Abby's touch, because she wanted to stay.

"Do you want me to call Tony?"

The words filled her wounded heart with both horror and longing, the former of which belonged to the woman of the desert who knew that name from a sharp knife and choked screams. The longing, though, belonged solely in this world of her imagination, where Ziva could vaguely recall steadfast arms and whispered promises of safety. As the two worlds were colliding so were the two women, and Ziva knew that when her soul combined finally with the woman of the desert's, it would surely be the horror that won out.

Somehow she ended up wrapped in clean bandages and clean pajamas and tucked into a soft, queen-sized bed. There was a kiss to her forehead and a few parting words that she could not recall because she was too busy clinging to that bit of lovely contact, the last handful of ashes of this incinerated dream world. She did not want to let go.

Real or not real, she did not want to leave this place, as she knew what awaited her on the other side.

**. . .**

Tony got the call at midnight. He was lying awake staring at his ceiling when he heard his phone begin to vibrate, and his heart sputtered and tripped over itself.

"DiNozzo," he answered, breathless.

"_She needs you."_

He exhaled sharply. "She said so?"

"_Nope. But I'm done listening to her scream."_

With that he hung up, leaving Tony with a sense of dread he hadn't felt before. He never knew she cried out so violently in her sleep. He'd never heard it those few nights last week; perhaps it was a new development. His stomach churned.

He drove like a madman and arrived in record time. He opened the front door still breathing heavily, from worry and excitement and dread. He did not know what he'd find in that room that night. For both of their sakes, he hoped not too much had changed in his absence.

Gibbs met him at the base of the staircase and gave him a nod.

"She might try to lash out physically. Be prepared," he warned, tapping his still-bruised eye. "Try not to hold her down, it'll just scare her more."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's lost and she's _scared_, DiNozzo." Gibbs stated. "She needs you."

Tony was halfway up the stairs when he heard her cry out for the first time. It was a sharp, pained cry, and he wondered how Gibbs managed to survive the past few days without waking her. Once he heard that noise coming from her room, there was no way he could stay away.

He did not linger in the doorway like he had done in nights past. She was asleep, so there was no need to be slow and careful in his approach. He was at her side in seconds, but there he hesitated, unsure.

In the soft moonlight that came in from the hallway, he could see her entire body was screwed up in pain and fear. Her shoulders were bunched, legs pulled toward to her torso, eyebrows knitted together. Her body was a picture of suffering, and the sounds falling from her open mouth helped illustrate it. She was surely not here in Virginia, and he had no clue of the best way to get her back.

She flinched and cried out again, and he threw caution out the window. He sat at her side and brought his hand to her face, stroking her jaw, her brow, her eyelids. He tried coaxing her back with whispered promises of safety, but nothing worked. Eventually, he had no choice but to be more forceful.

He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her softly at first, but he increased in strength until finally, _finally,_ he heard her gasp and she began to fight against him. She sat up almost the instant she was shaken awake, and suddenly her casted hands were flying, trying to strike his chest, his stomach, his jaw. He held them back, but she only struggled more.

"Ziva, it's okay, it's just me, I'm not gonna hurt you. It's okay. You're awake now."

But she did not stop fighting. Her panicked and unseeing eyes flittered across the room, trying to find some escape as her hands tried to hit him again and again. He fought her arms back, finally pinning them to her sides even though he felt like a monster for restraining her, and he felt the energy to fight evaporate from her body. She looked up at him then, _really_ looked, with eyes that were not stuck in some dream world but were clear, resigned, terrified. When he looked into them, he truly understood what Gibbs had meant minutes ago when he said she was lost. She saw the world around her, the bedroom in the house in Alexandria, but still she did not know where she was. It was a deeper kind of lost, one that transcended mere geography. She looked at him, and he saw just how far into the maze of her drug-addled mind she'd fallen in his absence.

They stared at one another, his hands on the sides of her shoulders, for a number of loaded seconds. He saw the fear melt into confusion in her coffee irises, and it seemed almost as if she was gazing upon a dead man, someone she'd thought she'd never see again. She could not seem to tear her eyes from his. They searched his frantically, disbelievingly, as if looking for some proof that he was a fraud. She must not have found any, because he saw the muscles in her face and shoulders go slack.

And then she crumbled, slumping forward into his open arms with a stifled sob that rent him in two. He could feel her casted hands pawing at his back as she tried to cling to him like a life-jacket. Her face was buried in his shoulder, and he could feel her hot, short breaths against his skin. He shuddered and held her tight, pressing his forehead to her scalp._ Shhh,_ he soothed her, rubbing a hand lightly up and down her back. She trembled in his arms, taking refuge in his unyielding embrace. He murmured comforting things into her hair, all the while running a few fingers through her wild locks. He could feel the tension draining from her stressed body.

"Let's get a little more comfortable, okay?" He repositioned them so he was leaning back against the headboard and she was lying with her head at his chest. She never looked up at him, but kept her face buried in his torso. He kept stroking her, whispering to her, doling out as much solace as he knew how to give.

"I missed you," he mumbled once in between assurances of safety, and though he'd thought before that she did not pay close attention to the words he spoke, he noticed that she shifted a bit at that. "Can I stay?"

She glanced up at him then, and he thought he saw what she'd wanted to hide. Confliction and shame swirled in her moonlit eyes. Still, she responded, "Yes," and even looked surprised to hear her own voice. She tested it again, whispering, "Do not let me go back."

A full sentence was more than he ever could have hoped for. "Never," he promised, ushering her to settle her head back down against his chest. His fingertips ran up and down her bandaged arm.

They passed what felt like hours like this, and Tony could feel himself being tugged in the direction of sleep. But he was her appointed watchman, and he needed to stay awake to ensure she did, too. The best way he knew how to do this was conversation. With her it was a long shot, but he attempted it anyhow.

"What do you see in your nightmares, Ziva?"

She sucked in a breath and he wondered if the question was somehow inappropriate. He felt her shake her head minutely against his chest.

"Don't want to talk about it, huh?"

She swallowed. "Would you?"

"No," he admitted, pushing a sweaty curl from her face and tucking it behind her ear. "But I'd need to." Her jaw quavered at his tender touch.

"They are so real," she whispered, face buried in his shirt.

"The nightmares?"

She shook her head. "They do not feel like nightmares." He frowned.

"What do they feel like?"

She shrugged, resigned. "Like I am back in Somalia."

He grit his teeth, knowing that confirmed what he'd suspected. It was him she saw in her nightmares. "Reliving the memories?"

"No. Not reliving."

"What, then?"

For a moment she was silent, pensive. Then she looked up at him and he could see the defeat etched plainly on her face. "It is as if I never left. As if this world…" she gestured to the room around her, "is just another hallucination, and I am still there…with _him…_" She trailed off, choking on the words.

He gulped. "With me?" He saw the shame flare once again, and she nodded miserably.

"Yes," she breathed, wide and desperate eyes searching his. His mouth pressed into a line.

"Ah."

"Whenever I close my eyes, you—_he _is always there, saying terrible things. _Terrible_ things, Tony."

"Like what?" He regretted the question the second it slipped from his mouth. She wet her lips.

"That my rescue was not real, that it was all a hallucination from the serum. That he… _wanted…_ me to think it was real, so that he could rip it away from me, piece by piece, and…" The pain and confusion thickened her voice, sped up her heart rate. "And Tony, I… I believe him."

Those last three words, spoken with such heartbreaking conviction, blindsided him and sent him reeling. He knew from the fear etched in every bit of her appearance that she did not want to believe her nightmares were real. He could only presume what kind of terrible circumstances, imagined or not, had led to her finally accepting such a horrifying prospect. Guilt wrapped its grubby fingers around his neck and squeezed, momentarily stealing his breath and his words. Eventually it slackened, and as it did he realized just how tightly he was clutching her to him.

"Ziva, listen to me," he began, taking her firmly by the shoulders and pushing her back so she would look at him. "You're not imagining this, okay? I'm here, I'm real." He could not lose her to the desert, not again. His fingers tightened around her shoulders and she shrunk back, but he would not back down. He needed her to hear him, to believe him. "_This_ is real. That man? He's in your imagination. He's not me. He's not real." She was shaking her head then, looking at him dead in the eyes. She looked like she felt just as crushed as he did.

"He says exactly the same thing about you."

Her words echoed and faded, and he understood then just how deep her mistrust ran. She could not trust herself just like she could not trust anyone else. She could not trust her eyes, her ears, her own mind. She could not trust that anything she felt was reality. There was confusion and fear lurking in every corner of her scrambled brain, a brain that had been draped in a cloak of obsidian hopelessness that obscured reality.

She was far more messed up than he ever could have imagined.

"I'm going to find a way to prove it to you, Ziva," he promised, pulling her back against him. She felt like dead weight in his arms.

"You cannot," she answered in a whisper that was almost a moan. Her unflinching despair brought back memories of a blood-soaked, shredded piece of fabric that she'd spent hours trying to twist into an instrument of suicide. He had assumed she'd left that desire behind when the noose slipped from her broken fingers and he carried her all the way back to America. He'd assumed she no longer craved death. Now, looking at the sheer hopelessness in her eyes, he was not so sure. There was a surge of red-hot fear that made his hands shake, eyes water.

"I'll find a way," he vowed, and he meant it. He would not rest until she knew she was safe. He could not bear the thought of losing her again, just like he could not bear the knowledge that that cruel version of himself still existed somewhere, even if that somewhere was in a fevered imagination—and especially if it was _Ziva's _imagination. He could not live if it was a version of himself, real or not, that was at fault for losing her again.

He decided to push such morbid thoughts away and just focus on her warm weight against his body. Though she still trembled in his arms, he thought he sensed some relief in her low, even breaths, her slack muscles, the way she held fast to his shirt with her only two unbroken fingers. He realized then that he had been just in time. She'd been so close to the edge, so close to being lost from this world, and he'd come at the eleventh hour to toss her a rope. He did not eradicate her nightmares, did not lessen their pull, but he gave her something in this disintegrating world to hold on to.

That night, the night she let him back in, she held him tightly and did not let go.


	6. Chapter 6

**. . .**

**Part VI**

**. . .**

She woke up in a bright room, sunlight streaming in from the only window. That was the first thing she noticed—the light. Even before she opened her eyes she could see its reddish glow through her lids. At first, her mind jumped to the torture chamber in Somalia. She had fallen unconscious there, and so she would wake up there. It was only logical.

But the light streaming in from the single window was about the only similarities the guest room in Gibbs's house had to her desert cell. Quickly she took note of the beige walls, the half-empty bookshelf, the oak tree whose green leaves pressed right up against the glass plane. She noticed the lack of almost any pain. She noticed the comfortable temperature, the soft bed, the clean pajamas, the downy comforter. And then there was the warm, humming body she was pressed up against, the chest she was using as a pillow that went _thuh-thump, thuh-thump_ under her ear, the fingers that lay limp on her side. This last one was perhaps the greatest shock of all. The night came back to her in bits and pieces.

She had been in Somalia, screaming in pain as her former partner taunted her with a red-hot fire poker. He'd dragged the tip along her ripped and mottled skin, leaving a path of flames in its wake on its journey through even the most despicable places of her body. She'd been naked and terrified and in agony, but there was still a part of her that clung to that little handful of ashes of that old world. A small part, but a part none-the-less. It held fast to the memories of gentle fingers unwrapping and rewrapping bandages, jasmine shampoo rinsed tenderly from her hair, soft kisses pressed to her forehead. With every scream, though, the grip slackened, because the agony was all-consuming. She barely remembered that world of gentle hands and goodnight kisses. She barely remembered the man who had held her after the nightmares, the man who looked just like the one decorating her body with disfiguring burns. There could not have been two of them, and as she stared through the pain up into his brutish green eyes a kind Tony DiNozzo had seemed like a distant dream. The darkness closed in.

And then something grabbed her, reached across that barrier and pulled her back into that crumbling world. She'd held on tight, wanting to weep at this last minute salvation. She had been so close to letting go. The man who only seconds ago had held a scorching metal poker to her breast wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders and lay her head to rest above his thrumming heart. In her relief, she'd relaxed against him and admitted more than she ever should have. But it felt good to let out her fears, and to listen to his assurances that this world, _their_ world, was the one and only reality. Even if she did not totally believe him, it soothed her burning soul. At this point, any reprieve was welcome. She was not ready to leave this fantasy world behind.

A few times as they drifted off to sleep, she allowed herself to indulge in the forbidden idea that his whispered promises were true. She cited the care in his touch, the concerned and gentle fear in his mossy eyes, as proof. This Tony feltfamiliar. Natural. The one that taunted and tortured her did not.

But of course, could she really expect such a thing to feel _right_? Even as she lay there in Tony's arms, allowing him to rub soothing circles on a back his counterpart had destroyed, she felt Somalia peaking through the cracks, waiting to claim her. Little grains of sand shifting on the moonlit windowsill, faint voices coming from outside and speaking in what sounded like Arabic, the wind rustling in the trees in such a way that she swore she heard it howl. Then she'd look up and see Tony's sleeping face, and wonder how in the world she was laying in his arms after all she'd seen him do. But then he would give a little hiccup of a snore from his half-open mouth or move his hand that rested on her back, and even these things he did gently. Even in his sleep, he was docile. She'd realized then why falling asleep on his chest did not faze her. After the pain his double inflicted upon her in the desert, she craved a kind touch. Not just any kind touch but _Tony's_, because as the one who inflicted the pain he was the only one with the capability to take it away. Every gentle word, action, or aspect of his demeanor further discredited her torturer and the agony-infested world he ruled.

In short, to be around him gave her hope.

When she woke up the next morning, however, she would find that this was not always the case. She'd fallen back asleep despite making a promise not to, and mercifully had not been yanked back into the desert world. When she woke up in his arms, though, it was a far different feeling than what she'd experienced last night. Just like those few nights he'd stayed with her before, the fear of him rushed back when the sun rose. Without the shock and fear of just having been torn back from Somalia, without that pain and the subsequent thirst for comfort so prominently in her mind, it was harder to let him near. The light of day, just as before, made everything different.

She did, however, notice that it was not as difficult to be near to him as it had been before she cast him away. She'd flinched from his every move then, still partially afraid that he would snap and turn back into the man that had tortured her in Somalia. But she no longer feared that he would hurt her, not in this world. The Tony that drew knives and cattle prods and fire pokers across her skin had a place, and that place was the desert reality she would inevitably return to. But he did not belong here, and she knew that this Tony was safe. Her greatest fear was no longer that the Tony laying beneath her would suddenly morph into that green-eyed monster, but that this world of soothing hands and loving promises would be lost to her forever.

Her aversion to the man beneath her was, rather, more discomfort than fear. It was a residual unease, she knew, because while she no longer feared him here, he still looked exactly like the man that she _did_, and when the cover of darkness retreated and sunlight streamed in through the window to illuminate his face she could no longer feel at ease lying next to him. There was too much suffering associated with those features. She needed space.

She knew she could not send him away again, though. It had been disastrous last time, and she'd almost lost the only refuge she had because of it. Her safe-haven of a world was always threatening to go up in flames, and Tony was the only one who could put out that fire. He was the only one who could keep her anchored to the happier of her two worlds. Reality be damned, she did not want to lose this.

She saw what the separation had done to him, too. She'd been hysterical and out of it last night, still half-blind after being enveloped in that consuming darkness for so long, but still she'd seen his bloodshot, black-rimmed eyes. She'd seen the complete relief that resonated in them when he was able to hold her. She'd heard the anxiety in his voice when he'd asked_ can I stay?_ She knew the separation hadn't done either of them good. It caused them both worse pain to be apart than it did to be together.

So when he asked, she said _yes_ and meant it.

But still, come morning, she separated herself from him carefully and went downstairs, needing to collect herself and to get away from the man who had such perfect physical resemblance to the reason for her real-life-nightmares. Needing to calm herself, she sat on the edge of the couch and worked on the puzzle Gibbs had dug out for her a few days prior. Without the picture, it was difficult to make any headway, especially with her overtaxed mind. Using her free thumbs she sorted the pieces into categories by color, but it didn't take long for her to develop a headache. She had been getting those frequently lately when it was too loud or bright or too much happened at once. She remembered the multiple times she'd been knocked unconscious by the butt of a gun or the steel toe of a boot. Was brain damage a possibility? Had they checked for that at the hospital? She made a mental note to ask Gibbs. He came downstairs not too long later and made her a plate of scrambled eggs, of which she ate almost a quarter while he told her that, yes, they'd done a CT scan and no, she didn't have any brain damage. Despite a large portion of her mind thinking this world of her rescue was false, she still felt a warm tide of relief. Gibbs sat in the armchair next to her and read the paper.

Tony was next down the staircase, yawning face framed by wild hair. His face brightened when he saw her on the couch. Her temple throbbed and she looked away, uncomfortable.

She was not looking at him, but she was sure that the disappointment was there. It was the reason she'd bade him to stop coming in the first place, because she knew he was standing there going over every one of his own actions in his head, beating himself up for something that was not his fault. She felt a pang of regret, but couldn't bring herself to say anything to him. She looked down at her broken hands and fiddled with two non-matching puzzle pieces until she heard his footsteps fade in the direction of the kitchen.

She did not avoid him that day, but neither did she seek him out. She made sure there was always distance between them and tried to avoid unnecessary eye contact. Seeing his expression of dejected confusion only made the guilt flare in her chest because she could not help her anxiety, no matter how much it hurt him. He'd done so much for her. He deserved better than her cold shoulder.

That night, the Tony of the desert dragged her back again. She'd been expecting it, but to wake back up naked and in agony on that dirty cell floor after spending the day so solidly in her hallucination was difficult to process. Still, no sooner than he'd dragged his knife across her belly and elicited a scream had she been pulled back and found herself cradled like a child in gentle arms. Her life was a game of tug-of-rope.

He held her to his chest like he did the night before, and in her desperation she clung to him just as hard. He whispered soothing words and drew soothing patterns on her back that was covered only by bandages and the thin, blue pajamas Abby had bought for her. She shivered, shaky breaths warming the skin under his wrinkled shirt.

"Ziva?" His voice broke the placid silence that had swept over them for the past few minutes.

"Hmm?" she hummed into his chest, and she felt him shift under her.

"Why are you pushing me away?"

She knew this was coming, but foolishly she had not prepared an answer. She thought for a moment, wanting to be delicate. "It is not… you, yes?"

"It never is," he scoffed, sounding miserable. Her eyes went wide and she sat up, turning so he could see her face.

"I promise, Tony, it isn't you."

"It's _him,_ right? You see him when you look at me?"

Now it was her turn to look miserable. She nodded.

"I get that, Ziva, I do," he promised. "I can only imagine…" He left it at that, as it was not hard to fill in the blanks. "But why is it different at night, then? Why is _this_ okay?" he asked, gesturing to the lack of space between the two of them, to their rather intimate situation.

She looked down, rubbing a thumb over the coarse material of her cast. "This is why I told Gibbs to keep you away. My… confusion… it is hurting us." Hesitantly she met his gaze and found hints of nervous fear.

"You don't want me to…?"

She shook her head. "No. I want you here. This hurts, true, but you _saw _what happened while you were gone." He seemed satisfied with that answer.

"You changed the subject. You didn't tell me why it's so different during the day."

Silence for a moment, then, "I no longer fear you." He looked somewhat surprised, if not also relieved, at that. "I know you will not hurt me, not here. You are not him."

"I sense a 'but' coming on here."

She looked at him with pleading eyes, took a deep breath, and continued. "But physically, Tony… It is hard to forget the things that your body has done to mine. Whether it is the same soul within it does not matter."

She could see that, like a little boy, he was trying to be brave despite the pain that raged within him. "So you'll always see him when you look at me." He swallowed. "You'll always be afraid of me."

Her eyes widened and if she could have taken his hand she would have. "Even during the day, I am not afraid anymore," she clarified, "only… anxious." That seemed to soothe him a bit, but another question appeared on his face.

"So why aren't you anxious now?"

She shrugged. "It is dark."

"And you can't see my face well," he concluded.

"Perhaps it is more because he rarely came at night." She saw a mix of horror and relief on his face, and she realized what he likely took from that sentence—horror that it happened at all, but relief because it was infrequent. She continued, wanting to get both of their minds off of that particular atrocity. "And after the… nightmares…" she still hesitated to call them that, "you are the only one who can take away the pain _he_ inflicts."

"Why's that?"

She worried her bottom lip. "When you are kind, he does not feel as real."

That stirred something in him. She saw the light-bulb spark in his eyes, the determination set in. She did not have to guess at what he'd made his new mission. He invited her to lie back down in his arms, and so she did, her head nestled in the crook of his arm. They stared at the ceiling.

"Ziva?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think that maybe if I was around more he'd go away for good?" She stiffened slightly in his arms.

"I do not know about 'for good.'"

"But it would still help, right? I know I make you… anxious… but maybe you'll get used to me. And forget about…"

"Forget about him?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Maybe not forget. I know you don't forget things like that."

"What, then?"

He gulped. "Maybe you'll stop thinking he's real?" His questioning, tentative voice sounded so like that of a child. She heaved a sigh.

"I do not _want_ to believe he is real."

"Is that a yes? To letting me hang around?"

He was really pushing the boundaries tonight, she noticed. Perhaps he was growing impatient or frustrated—if so, she couldn't blame him. He was testing her, but strangely enough she did not resent that. She too was impatient. She too wanted the desert to be gone.

"I will… try… to be more comfortable with you during the day, yes? I know it is not fair to you for me to be so… fickle."

"Ziva," he sobered, and she could almost hear his expression darkening, "this is about helping you heal. It's about showing you what's real and what isn't. It's_ not _about what's fair to me."

"But that is still important," she insisted. "You deserve better than this." He exhaled lowly and ran his fingers over her tangled curls. She thought she could feel him slowly shaking his head.

"All of the shit you're dealing with and you're worried about what _I_ deserve," he mused, awe coloring his tone. "The fact that, after everything that's happened to you, you're still thinking about how others feel…" He shook his head in wonder. "Ziva, you're gonna be just fine."

_We're gonna be just fine._

**. . .**

She was not one to back down on her promises, and so she made a conscious effort to interact with Tony the next day. If she were being honest, she would admit that it was not as difficult as she had expected. He sat in the armchair near the couch, still a good distance away even as they worked together on the thousand-piece puzzle. Sometimes his hands would pass close to hers and she would interrupt her slow, calculated movements to jerk them backwards. It was involuntary, really. Her fingers had been the first things of hers he'd broken. She could still hear the _snap, snap, snap _of his first true and unforgiveable act of violence against her. That initial shock of horror and betrayal stayed with her more strongly than even the memory of the most painful of his tortures.

But those moments of proximity were infrequent, because he learned his lesson quickly and kept his hands on his side of the table. He helped her sort the pieces by color, and then into end and middle pieces. She kept her gaze averted and they did not speak, but there was a certain camaraderie in their teamwork that spoke for itself. Despite neither of them knowing what the final picture was meant to look like, they still made significant progress.

Dr. Mallard came over for dinner, carrying a crockpot of his mother's famous pot-roast. It was a heavy meal and at first Ziva's stomach rebelled at the prospect, but once it was dished out in front of her and she could smell the enticing aroma she did not hesitate to eat. Determined to keep this meal down, she ate slowly and deliberately. She did not eat as much as any of them would have liked, but still she ate more than she had in the previous few days. She felt strangely proud, and more full than she had in months.

At dinner, Ducky filled the air with his anecdotes. Ziva realized how much she had missed seeing him after she left the hospital. Even if she could not always follow his stories, the easy cadence of his accented words was a balm to her blazing soul. He addressed her as _my dear Ziva_ and spoke to her as if she was still that young, wild Mossad Officer that sometimes joined him for a cup of afternoon tea. That evening at the dinner table, she soaked in his stories and even smiled, once. It was a strange feeling, and she realized then that she did not know the last time she had done that. It must have been months—since before she threw open her apartment door to find Michael dying on the floor. That was May. It was now late September, perhaps early October. She did not bother herself with such details.

Sometimes she would notice Ducky studying her from across the table. She knew that the doctor in him couldn't resist checking her over and that he meant only to ensure her health. He likely understood better than any of the others the horrors she'd suffered—the empathy and solidarity that shone behind his wire-rimmed spectacles spoke clearly of this. Yet she still could not bring herself to be anything but uncomfortable with how transparent she felt under his heavy gaze. Sitting at the table with the three men, she felt as though they were all staring, analyzing, trying to determine what had cracked in her brain that turned her into _this._ She fidgeted, averting her eyes, and tried to refrain from turning in on herself.

The sun set and Ducky left, taking with him his easy manner and entertaining stories. Ziva headed upstairs to prepare herself for bed, which took an exorbitant amount of time due to her impairment, but she still refused to accept help from anyone else. There had been a little glimmer of pride on Gibbs's face when she had declined his offers, and she thought she'd seen a little bit of the woman she used to be reflected in his eyes. It was difficult to tell, though, because Ziva hardly recognized her.

She returned to Somalia that night and it was just like any other. The taunting, the pain, the despair that settled like a hundred-pound weight on her heart, head, shoulders. Tony laughed when she screamed, and smirked when she tried feebly to fight back. His eyes were sharp, cutting emeralds that promised endless suffering at his hands.

But then it _did_ end, the suffering cut short by another set of hands that were identical in appearance, but could not have been more different when they caressed her flushed face instead of striking it. She shivered, and leaned into his touch.

She opened her eyes and noticed just how _bad_ he looked. He'd been sleeping in his clothes, and she imagined the wooden headboard he'd spent most of the last few nights propped up against was not all that comfortable. She'd seen the crumpled blanket and pillow tucked under the couch downstairs, and she knew that before he came up to comfort her, he slept on Gibbs's couch. That is, if he slept at all—she did not know how loudly she cried out in her sleep, but she couldn't imagine it was loud enough to wake him up. He'd been catching the dreams early. He probably would lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering how long it would be before her haunted screams pierced the quiet suburban night. His fatigue showed in his red eyes, the dark, heavy bags beneath them, and the slump of his shoulders. He'd looked pretty similar to this when he came back to her a few days ago, but she'd suspected then that it was largely due to many nights of drinking himself to sleep. Now, it was pure emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion.

They did not talk that night. Hoping it would help him sleep, she coaxed him into laying down flat with his head on the pillow instead of propping himself up on the headboard. Once he complied, she settled into their by-now-familiar position and tried to relax. He fell asleep far quicker than she did. She spent a long time just lying in the dark, grounding herself in the feel of his body warm against hers and the absence of acute pain. This man would not hurt her. She realized that although the threat of returning to Somalia always lingered, she felt safe lying here with him—safe and secure and protected. It had been a long time she'd felt this way. It had been a long time since she'd experienced a lot of things, really.

They'd taken so much from her.

She slept and woke and woke _alone_, to that note. It surprised her to find him gone. Gibbs told her he'd gone home for a few hours, presumably to shower and change and likely pack a bag if this was to become their new normal. He came back around lunchtime, holding a paper bag stamped with the logo of a nearby deli in one hand and a Styrofoam cup with a lid and straw in the other. He grinned and sat them down on the coffee table in front of her. She tried not to flinch away, and was semi-successful. She looked up at him quizzically.

"Philly cheese steak from that place you love in downtown Alexandria," he explained, pointing to the bag, "and a Berry Mango Madness smoothie from that place on M Street."

Her brow crumpled. "M Street is all the way in Georgetown." He just shrugged.

"It's the kind you like, right?"

"Yes, but…" she trailed off, running her thumb around the rim of the plastic lid. She looked up. "Thank you, Tony. You did not have to."

"No problem." He reached into the bag and pulled out two sandwiches and inclined to the kitchen. "I'm gonna go cut this up for you. Be right back." The casual manner in which he referenced her handicap made her pause. She studied his retreating form with her head cocked slightly to the side and slid the straw into her mouth. The cool liquid came up the straw and coated her tongue with a long-forgotten flavor that clouded her eyes with memories. Orange walls, bright skylights, ringing telephones, and the constant clicking of fingers on keyboards seemed closer than they had since she'd last seen them almost five months ago.

Tony returned with her sandwich cut into small pieces on one of Gibbs's finest paper plates. He sat in the armchair and they enjoyed the food together in silence. Although it took her nearly an hour, she ate the whole thing and basked in the pride displayed so obviously on his face when he picked up her empty plate to throw away.

"That was delicious," she admitted, unable to remember the last time she'd eaten because she enjoyed it, not out of necessity or obligation.

"I'm glad. It always was your favorite."

She bored of the puzzle quickly that day, having gone cross-eyed and frustrated from staring at the hundreds of pieces so much. She suddenly was craving fresh air and so she headed to the back porch, wondering if perhaps cabin fever was setting in.

He sat next to her on the porch steps, leaving only inches between them. It was closer than she'd let him during the day in the past, and she fought the urge to slide away. But with the railing on her right and him on her left, there wasn't any way to put more distance between them without getting up and moving. She swallowed back her unease and tried to focus on breathing in the crisp autumn air.

"Are you in pain, Ziva?"

The question caught her off guard. She frowned. "Some. Why?"

He shrugged. "Just curious. I know you had a lot of… injuries…" She looked down at her lap, twiddling her thumbs.

"It is not so bad," she mused softly. It was not a lie. Her bones, especially her ribs and those in her hands and feet, ached consistently. If she moved or stretched the wrong way, the still healing wounds on her back, stomach, and thighs would throb, and sometimes she could still feel residual pain from the hundreds of burns that peppered her body. She got headaches and she frequently hurt _inside,_ but it was a dull hurt, nothing that could hold water to the terrible agony she'd been in before. "Not in… in comparison."

"To your nightmares?"

She nodded.

"Do you ever think that maybe that's a sign that this world is the real one?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked, frowning.

"Don't you think that if this was just a hallucination, you'd still feel the pain from the nightmares? I mean hallucinations can be vivid, but if you were in _that much_ pain, I don't think it would just… go away," he reasoned.

"Tony… You do not understand how powerful they can be," she countered. "There were times where I was _certain_ I was being burnt alive and would wake up later without a burn more on my body."

"But that was adding pain. The stuff they shot you up with attacked the fear center of your brain. Its job was to create pain that wasn't there. But to take away pain that _is?_ Especially pain like the kind you experience?" He shook his head. "That doesn't seem possible."

She glanced up at him, expression darkening. "How would you know the pain I experience?"

"I don't," he answered, "But I've seen—_heard_ what your nightmares are like. I can only assume…"

A flood of humiliation washed over her, and she averted her gaze. "You have put a lot of thought into all of this."

"Well, I realized there wasn't a point in just telling you what's real and what isn't. I figured I'd try to back it up with some logic."

She nodded. "This is definitely logical."

"But you still don't buy it, do you?"

"It is… hard, when it feels so real."

"I thought of some more things to try to convince you. You know, if you want to hear them." His voice was tight.

"What are they?"

He loosened. "Well, I was thinking, and you only ever go back there when you fall asleep here, right?"

Her brow furrowed. "Yes."

"But when you're there, and you come back here… What's that transition like?" She fidgeted, not willing to divulge the specifics of her night terrors.

"It used to end when y—_he_ injected me. But now it depends," she admitted. "You have been catching them quickly." She hoped her gratitude was evident in her voice. She looked up and found that his face had grown animated as he processed her words.

"Think about it, Ziva," he implored, sounding almost breathless. "If that world was _really_ the real one, wouldn't it be the other way around? Wouldn't it be _this_ world that got cut short all the time? You wouldn't just drift off into the dream or hallucination world in the middle of… well, whatever it is they do to you."

Her head spun and she could feel a migraine coming on. She knew he was right. She knew that every word coming from his mouth was the epitome of calm and reasonable rationale. But she could not focus.

"Tony…"

"I have more," he continued, and she could hear the hope that raised his voice a half-octave. How long had he spent thinking of ways to convince her? "But we have to go somewhere. Are you okay with taking a walk down the street to the park?"

The question threw her for a loop, because for a second she had trouble remembering that there really_ was_ a world beyond what lay on Gibbs's property. Sure, she saw cars pass and school buses drop off kids across the street, and when Tony and Abby and Ducky left through the front door surely they went _somewhere._ But she still hadn't been anywhere other than to the hospital and back, and even then Gibbs drove her there. She hadn't considered the idea that she was _free_ for the first time in months, free to walk out the front door and take a stroll around the block, free to visit the neighborhood park, free to walk to the nearest bus-stop and just leave. The house was never locked. Nothing was trapping her there. So why hadn't it occurred to her to do any of those things?

She could write it off easily as due to her injuries, of course. Her feet had only recently healed, and by the end of the day they throbbed even if she had walked very little. Besides that, she was hardly fit to go out in public. She looked like a ghost in a borrowed, oversized sweat suit. She couldn't even use her hands.

Still, she knew none of these things were the real problem at hand. At the root of the issue was the fact that she _hadn't_ realized she could do those things. She still felt trapped, almost as trapped as she had been in Somalia and still was every night when she returned. After having her freedom stripped from her, skinned away from her bleeding, beaten soul, it was hard to come to terms with having it back. Sometimes she simply forgot. And then there was the part of her that thought she really couldn't leave—as if this dream world would disintegrate if she pushed too hard at its boundaries.

So when he asked if she wanted to take a walk with him, she agreed readily despite her aching feet and haggard appearance. If he was offering to take her—Tony, a native inhabitant of this fantasy world—surely it was safe? Once the idea was in her head she could not get it out. Forget her physical limitations, she wanted to experience what it was like to be able to walk anywhere on her own power. No stretchers, no wheelchairs, no Dodge Charger. Just her legs, twigs though they may have been, pushing her body forward, toward, away.

She slipped on the old tennis shoes Abby had brought her and laced them up loosely. As she stood up, she tried to push her straggly hair from her face but had little luck with her hard, immobile hands. Tony reached out a hand in a silent, hopeful offer. She nodded, looking away and steeling herself so as to not flinch away from his touch. He tucked the wayward strands behind her ears oh-so-tenderly, and when he pulled away to open the door for her she shuddered silently, but not with fear or disgust.

They walked in silence down the cracked sidewalk. A soft, early-autumn breeze carried the first falling leaves across their path and chilled her, despite the layers of bandages and her warm attire. The fresh air and the openness of the outdoors exhilarated her. They arrived at the park at the end of the street and sat on a bench near the playground, and as the adrenaline wore off she began to really feel the ache in her feet. _Adrenaline rush from taking a walk to the park,_ she mused, and wondered how she ever could have guessed that this was what her life would become.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and the park was humming with life and laughter. On the walking path, joggers breezed past mothers that pushed strollers and jabbered into their cell phones. Children, whose watchful parents and babysitters sat together at a nearby picnic table, shouted and shrieked and climbed all over the playground. A little girl fell off the monkey bars and skinned her elbow—her mother rushed forward with a Band-Aid in hand. She knelt down and pressed it to her daughter's arm, then pulled her in for a hug and absorbed the little girl's tears on her brightly colored blouse.

A soccer ball rolled to a stop at Ziva's feet. She bent down at picked it up between her useless hands. When she looked up, she saw a young boy skid to a stop in front of her. He grinned as she handed him the ball, but his smile disappeared when he saw her two blue casts.

"What happened to your hands?"

"They are broken," she answered, wincing inwardly at how rough her voice still sounded. Instantly, there was sympathy in the boy's face.

"That stinks. I broke my wrist a few months ago and it _hurt._ At least I think it was my wrist. But I got a cool cast like yours! Only mine was red. _Firetruck_ red. And all my friends signed it. You should have your friends sign your casts." His smile was back, and he held up the ball. "Thanks, ma'am!" Then he took off running again, heading back toward his friend, and left her to call a feeble_ you're welcome_ after him. She did not think he heard. So much energy in such a small child. She marveled at what that must feel like, to not end every day completely wiped out and aching in every corner of her body. She'd had that kind of energy once. Perhaps, a very long time ago, she'd also had his innocence. But all of that was long gone now.

Tony sat silent next to her, observing the park around them just as she did. Overhead leaves drifted and honking geese flew in a v-formation, heading south. All across the park, squirrels gathered and buried the acorns that littered the ground. Everyone was preparing for winter. She looked up at the man beside her and suddenly remembered that he'd purposefully asked her here.

"Why are we here?"

He shrugged. "To observe."

"But _why?"_

He inhaled deeply and turned to her. "Look around you. Look at all these people. They're all here, in this park, at the same time." She frowned, not seeing where he was going with this, but allowed him to continue. "They've all got their own lives. Their own pasts and futures, hopes and dreams. They've all got their own shit they've gotta deal with. They've all got their own experiences, things that led them to being here, in this park, today."

"This is awfully deep, Tony," she teased, uncomfortable with how serious he had suddenly gotten.

"Just let me finish," he said. "It's like this… super complex web of people and experiences. All meeting here. Us? Our story? We're just a little part of that."

His words reminded her of the night she'd told him to stay away, the night she spent under the stars. She'd considered then how tiny she was, how big the universe was around her. She'd had her own doubts about the truth of the desert world that night. She realized then where he was going with this.

"Now, knowing this… Tell me, Ziva, which do you think is a more likely thing for your brain to make up? A single-room cell and one man? Or this complex,_ huge_ world, where I could take you any place you wanted right now and it would be full of people just like these, all interacting with each other and going on with their own individual lives? Which do you think sounds more like reality? Which do you think sounds more like a dream or hallucination?"

Her temples throbbed. She wanted to say something, anything, to acknowledge just how deeply his words hit her, but her tongue was sandpaper and she could not think of a word to say. She'd had these very thoughts and doubts herself, but hearing them laid out so clear-cut and logically in front of her, in such a rational, soothing voice made them resonate even more profoundly than they ever could have if she'd just thought them on her own. He was right, at least about this. It was highly unlikely that she could have dreamed up such a vast and complex world. Such tiny details—the flecks of gold in that little boy's eyes, the snot-stains on the caring mother's shirt, the tiny ant that crawled along in the grass at her feet—would never have existed in a world that was solely hallucination. When held against what she saw in the other world, there was little contest. The world she returned to at night was a barren cell she'd spent months in, a cruel man who had traumatized her, and agonizing pain she could never forget. All of those things had been burned into her memory.

"After what happened to you… You went through_ hell._ You've got PTSD. Of course you're having nightmares. If you didn't, I'd be concerned. This world, _this_ side of the story… It makes sense. But the other side?" He shook his head, looking at her with pleading eyes. "I mean, does _one thing_ that other version of me has done to you line up with who you knew me to be before all this happened? Does my behavior in your nightmares make sense at _all?_ How does he justify what he does to you?"

It was a lot of questions. A lot to process. Her heat hurt.

"He does not try to justify it," she admitted. "He just… wants to hurt me."

"Then before all this started, is there _anything_ you saw me do that would indicate I was capable of doing something like that?"

Her cheeks flushed, embarrassed. "I do not remember."

"Don't remember what?"

"I told you this, Tony. I am having a hard time recalling things that happened… before."

"I thought maybe you'd remembered by now."

She shrugged. "I remember some things. Flashes. Bits of conversations. But I do not remember everything." Upon seeing the dejected look on his face, she continued. "It is coming back, though. Slowly," she assured him. "And for what it is worth, I do not remember you ever being cruel."

He heaved a sigh. "That's good, I guess."

He looked so sad, suddenly. She missed the excitement and hope that only minutes ago had burned bright in his mossy eyes. For some reason, she longed to take his hand in hers, but it was impossible, so she did not.

"Would it help if I got some old pictures? Of the team? Maybe told you some stories? Probie could even come over. Maybe we'd jog your memory?" There was desperation in his voice, and she knew that he wanted more than anything for her dreams to be gone predominantly because he could not stand the thought of her still believing him capable of such barbarity.

"It might," she conceded. The woman she had been before Somalia seemed so foreign, like a different person. Perhaps seeing pictures would help, even if it might hurt to see how she had once been—the woman Tony remembered.

The hope was back on his face, and it was almost contagious. That along with the bright, cool day and brilliant laughter of nearby children lifted her spirits considerably. She almost smiled. Almost.

Her feet hurt terribly by the time they returned to Gibbs's house, and she collapsed back on her perennial seat on the couch with an _oof._ She was exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally, but also felt more grounded in this safe haven of a world than she had since she'd returned. He sat down next to her on the couch, their sides almost touching.

It was with awe that she realized, some time time later, that she had not even flinched.

**. . .**

Tony's powers of persuasion were put to the test that night. After Abby helped Ziva shower, replaced her bandages, and tucked her into bed, it did not take long for sleep to descend. The park was only a few blocks down the street, but today's foray had been the most Ziva had moved in over four months, and she could feel it in her weary bones. Somalia claimed her swiftly and cleanly.

The Tony of the desert barely had a chance to cut into her before the Tony of DC yanked her away. He held her while she struggled to regain her breathing and her grip on the world around her. Her focus had shifted, though. While in nights past she had dwelt on nothing but recovering from the pain and pushing the images away, she now strived to hold on to them.

In the midst of the torture, she could think of little else but her agony. The reprisals of pain and terror were all consuming. Try as she might, she could not force herself to shift her attention to evaluating the world around her, picking it apart for any sign that it might have been a figment of her imagination. Now, though, as the pain ebbed and her breathing slowed, she was conscious enough to do this. The flaws that she found, she grabbed, clinging to them as if they were of gold. She held fast to the little scraps of evidence she found, as all the while Tony's logic echoed in her head.

Looking back on that arid world, she noticed a few things. First, there was the indistinctness of it all—how the edges of her vision seemed to blur and swim and disappear, so unlike the world currently around her that, even in the dark, was clear, crisp, and infinitely detailed. Next, there was the door—how he entered through it every time, but there was never anything _beyond_. There was no narrow, dim-lit hallway; simply a dark void that for some reason she'd never paid any heed.

And then there was how it had ended. Just like the previous nights, the torture had been interrupted by cool hands that rested on her shoulders and _tugged_. The world around her had faded to black that wrapped around her burning body like a shock blanket, soothing, swaddling, swallowing her. The crisp air had filled her fiery lungs, reinvigorating and refreshing. Then, her eyes adjusted to the dark, and the new world around her took shape. In these aspects, this was no different than any other night. But tonight, she paid special attention to the way in which she returned to this cool autumn room. For the first time, she consciously acknowledged that it truly did feel like an _awakening._ It was as if she had been drifting, but Tony's hands pulled her back to the ground, tethering her here with his gentle touch and gentle words. If this was truly the world of her imagination as the man of the desert claimed, should it not have been the opposite?

Why would returning to her hallucination feel like coming home?

She clung to these ideas the way she clung to Tony, who, in his own way, served also as a testament to the reality of this world. Her doubt of her rescue, doubt that had been planted in her heart so many nights ago and had flourished in Tony's absence, was now slowly withering, the questions he'd posed the day before wrapping themselves around and strangling its sprawling, blackened roots. No longer did she simply _want_ to believe this world to be true. As Tony's logic began to pry the doubt from her consciousness, she felt herself opening.

In reality, it was a minute change, for the darkness of doubt had roots that buried themselves deep within her and clung to their new home with all they had, eager to continue spreading their disease. Pulling them out was a protracted and arduous task, one that could take weeks or even months. Each was individually dug up and cast away, but even the smallest was progress all the same. In the void they left behind was new room for that which before had been cast out. Light. Hope. Reason.

She buried her face in his neck and held fast to his world.

**. . .**

The next day marked two weeks since she'd left the hospital, and the date of Ziva's second check up with her doctors. Dr. Sellers seemed satisfied with her physical state, citing the scabbing over of the more-fresh flesh wounds, a few pounds of weight gain, and her increased mobility. She had to bite her tongue to keep from asking if he could remove the casts that day. She knew the answer to that question. There was still one more week left for her hands to heal, which still seemed to her an interminable amount of time.

The appointment with her psychiatrist did not go as smoothly. Ziva knew that the doctor wanted more than Ziva was prepared to offer. Dr. Herron knew that she was not getting the whole story, and she pried out of concern for her patient's mental health.

"How are you coping with your limitations, Ziva?"

Ziva fidgeted on the couch cushion. "My limitations?"

"Things are different for you now than they were before," Dr. Herron asserted carefully.

"My hands make everything difficult. But I am dealing."

"It's more than just your hands, Ziva."

Ziva heaved a sigh, exasperated. "Fine. My feet hurt and I always have a headache and I cannot go up a flight of stairs without becoming winded. But I am _dealing._" The doctor cocked her head to the side.

"It's more than just _physical._"

"You are saying I am mentally limited?"

"I am saying you're hurt. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. And you don't strike me as someone who likes being hindered by anything."

"What is it you are getting at?"

The doctor sat her folder and pen on the coffee table between them and sat forward in her chair, elbows resting on her knees.

"Ziva, you're not the same woman that walked into that terror camp in May."

"Yes. They broke me. I am aware." The clipped words dripped with bitterness.

"What's broken can be fixed."

"Not always."

"Do you think you will ever be the person you were before Somalia?"

Ziva pulled forward wisps of memories of who she had been, that strong and confident woman that she now could barely recall.

"No."

"And does that upset you?"

Ziva looked down at her imprisoned hands. In truth, beyond an occasional lamentation, she had not given this subject much thought. But to tell her doctor would require admitting that it was because she had more pressing issues, such as whether or not she had actually been saved, to deal with. The confusion between what was real and what wasn't left little room for self-pity and self-reflection.

"I suppose it does."

"You… suppose?"

"There is a lot for me to work through. I still do not know what is real and what is not. I do not have the energy to be concerned with how I do or don't match up to a woman I barely remember."

Ziva saw the interest spark in her doctor's eyes. "You are having memory loss? Why didn't you mention that?"

"I do not think it is memory loss. Suppression, perhaps. But not loss."

Dr. Herron picked up her folder and pen again and began to write. "When did this start?" she asked, not looking up from the paper.

"When Tony started…" The lump in Ziva's throat intercepted the rest of her sentence.

"Any idea why?"

Ziva's brown eyes burned, indignant. "A man I had trusted with my life was torturing me. Why do you _think?_"

"You pushed away the memories," Dr. Herron nodded, understanding. "You thought that if you couldn't remember who he had been to you, it would lessen the pain of his betrayal."

"I did not do it on purpose," Ziva insisted.

"It was likely subconscious. The serum probably helped, though."

She lowered her gaze, wrapping her heavy, clumsy arms around her midsection. "I was so confused. How he could…" She shook her head. "His actions did not make sense."

"So you locked away your memories from before to make it so they did."

Ziva nodded. "And now I do not know how to get them back."

"At all?"

"No, I have remembered some things. I know… basic ideas. I remember bits and pieces. They have been returning, but very slowly." She twiddled her thumbs. "I told him this yesterday. He has decided to try to help jog my memory. Hopefully it will work. Perhaps if I... remember more… then I can put all of this in context, yes?"

"That's very insightful, Ziva. I think that's a great idea." Ziva fidgeted, hating feeling patronized. The doctor continued. "To be honest, I didn't know you and Tony were really speaking yet. That's a lot of progress, I'm impressed." Despite herself, Ziva felt her cheeks flooding with heat. She had always been so eager to please.

"He helps me. It is hard sometimes, but he helps me."

"What is hard, exactly?"

"Having him close, after… after everything."

"I'd imagine so," the doctor sympathized. "In what ways does he help you?"

Ziva simply shrugged. "He wants me to get better. He believes that I_ can_. At least that is what he says."

"And you don't believe it? That you can get better?"

"I do not know what better _means._ I am… disoriented. I do not know which way is up, anymore. But he does."

"He guides you," the psychiatrist concluded. Finally, something Ziva could agree with.

"Yes."

**. . .**

They were waiting on the couch, a cardboard box wedged between them, in a sunlight flooded living room when Ziva and Gibbs returned. In Tony's hands was a fat envelope, and on both his and McGee's faces were warm, welcoming smiles.

"Hey, Ziva," the younger agent greeted. "It's been a while."

"Hello, Tim," she answered with brightened eyes.

"We come bearing gifts," Tony informed her, holding up the envelope and nodding toward the box between them.

"I expected the pictures," Ziva admitted, "but what is in the box?" She moved to sit down in the armchair, but McGee quickly stood up and offered her his seat on the couch. She accepted and sunk into the worn cushions, and without the box between them she surely would have been leaning up against Tony.

"I brought you your books when you were still in the hospital, but I figured you'd want the rest of your personal affects back, too." Ziva peered into the box.

"This is what was in my desk when I…?"

"Yep," McGee answered. "Don't worry, there's nothing embarrassing. I tried to maintain your privacy."

"You were the one that cleaned out my desk?"

Tim shrugged. "Someone had to do it."

Tony moved a few puzzle pieces and sat the box in front of her on the coffee table. Ziva went to reach into it, but found quickly that her casts impeded her ability to dig through the items. Tony sat forward on the couch and offered to help her.

One by one, he pulled what was left of her old life out of the cardboard box and sat the items down on the table. There were the more utilitarian items, things like her stapler, pens, and hand sanitizer. And then came the items with stories.

"We used to play a game with these," Tony told her of the Ziploc bag with numerous crumpled fortunes from the cookies that came with their takeout. "Tack _in bed_ on the end of almost any and they're hilarious. You would put your favorites in your drawer."

In the bag with the fortunes, McGee had also packed the wallet-sized photo of her beautiful, smiling little sister that she'd kept in her top drawer for years. Next to the picture was a colorful loyalty card for the place in Georgetown that sold her Berry Mango Madness smoothies. Under the Ziploc bag were a few pairs of extra chopsticks and numerous takeout napkins of various sizes and colors.

Then there was a small bag full of travel-sized hygiene items. A stick of deodorant, a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, a small brush, lots of hair ties. Also in the bag were four pads she kept for emergencies. She remembered that she had not bled in months, the malnourishment and stress from this summer had seen to that.

Next to a stick of Chapstick was a bottle of her favorite moisturizing lotion that she'd brought back from Israel when she was recalled back to NCIS. Its Hebrew label read _lavender scented_. She wanted to put some on, and mourned that she couldn't.

"This stuff smells like you," Tony mused. "You used to put it on a lot, especially in the winter." He unscrewed the cap and held it to her nose. She inhaled and felt as if she was breathing in the ghostly remnants of the woman she once was. Its sweet, flowery scent mocked her, because now she smelled of blood and rot and dirt, no matter how many times she tried to get clean.

There was a blue neck pillow for when they had to spend the night in the office, a half-empty bottle of Tylenol sitting in the center of it. Under it was a pair of gloves, a pair of fuzzy socks, and a colorful scarf. She got cold often in DC, she remembered. There was also a roll of Ace bandages that she used to deal with on-the-job and sparring injuries that she did not deem necessary to bother even Ducky about. She was also happy to find a pair of folded sweats and an NCIS sweatshirt, clothes of her very own that had survived the fire in her apartment by camping out in her gym locker at the Navy Yard, which apparently McGee had emptied as well.

"Thought you'd be happy about those," Tim mused. "You're probably tired of wearing stuff that's too big for you all the time. Abby told me she's going shopping for you this weekend. She'll get you something other than sweats to wear, but we figured these would work for now."

"They will. Thank you."

A pad of post-it notes covered in absent doodles lay atop a box of Ziva's favorite jasmine tea. Next to the tea was a strangely designed mug. It seemed so familiar, but she could not recall the story behind it.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," Tony explained, chuckling nervously at scratching the back of his head. "I don't know if you remember, but that time we were interviewing witnesses and that little boy had those action figures… we joked about you being a Mutant Ninja Israeli. I got this for you as a gag gift a few years back."

She cocked her head to the side. "What do I have in common with a mutant turtle?"

He laughed good-naturedly. "You didn't get the premise then, either."

Next there was a box of Valentine's Day chocolates, small, red, and unopened. It was not signed, and neither of them remembered who it could have been from. On top of this there was an MP3 player and a pair of athletic earbuds. Ziva pressed the _on_ button and scrolled through a wide variety of music, everything from Hadag Nahash to Debussy. She realized then how much she missed her morning runs—her muscles burning, the wind in her hair, the music blaring loudly in her ears. Now she could barely handle a leisurely stroll to the park. She felt a pang as Tony removed an orange beanie from the box. She did not vividly remember much about the contents he'd pulled out thus far, but she remembered that.

"Roy."

Tony nodded sadly. "Yeah."

After that there was her car keys, and suddenly she remembered her red Mini. She frowned.

"Where is my car?"

"Gibbs put it in storage for you. I'm sure he'll get it out for you when you ask." Never mind that she did not have a physical driver's license, and had no clue how to go about getting one. Surely she could not drive until her hands fully healed.

"You really believed I was coming back."

"Gibbs did."

"And you did not?"

"You were really pissed at me, Ziva. I thought I'd messed it up for good."

She was not sure how to reply to that yet, so she turned her attention back to what was left in the box. Only a few things remained. One of them was a small, spiral-bound black book.

She flipped through its pages, realizing quickly that it was full of contacts. Written in Hebrew were names of people she had known as a teenager, then in the IDF, and finally in Mossad. They stretched back almost a decade. _Monique Lisson. Shmeil Pinkhas. Michael Rivkin. Jenny Sheppard. _There were names of contacts she'd met on foreign missions whose names she could no longer put to faces. She had _x'_s written next to the names of people who owed her a favor, and five-point stars next to those to whom she was in debt. Her father's work numbers took up almost half a page, full of digits that had been crossed out and rewritten with various colored pens as he rose in the ranks at Mossad. She flipped quickly from his page, hating the empty sadness that swirled in her stomach when she remembered that it had been over three weeks since her miraculous rescue and she was still yet to hear a word from him.

Under this black book was a black box, and she recognized it immediately. Ari had bought her this knife set for her twenty-first birthday, the year before she was to slay him. She flipped open the latch and gazed at the glinting blades. She noticed the two men eying her with nervous suspicion, but ignored them.

She stared transfixed at the blades, hoping that if she studied them long enough she would remember how to use them. The woman she was now did not feel comfortable holding this box. What was she, a broken woman with broken hands, to do with knives? She ran her thumb down a black hilt and shivered, the material cool beneath her fingertip. Where before such things would have brought her comfort, now it only served to emphasize the divide between who she once was and who she was now. Ziva had had enough knives for one lifetime.

She shut and latched the box, setting it down quickly on the table next to her other possessions. Now that she had seen them all, Tony had begun piling them back into the small box that could hold all that was left of her old self.

"You okay?" he asked, turning to her once he finished.

"I am fine."

He knew her too well for that, she could see it on his face, but he let it slide. "Wanna look at some pictures now?" Ziva nodded.

Inside the envelope were some pictures that the two men had collected and had developed yesterday. They had enlisted Abby and Ducky's help, and together all four of them went through their old pictures and picked out anything that included their former colleague. There were many, and there were an assortment.

There were quite a few pictures from crime scenes, where Tony had fooled around and taken pictures of his partner instead of the evidence. In some she was oblivious, in some she was laughing, and in others she held her hand up to block the camera's view.

And then there were the ones from office parties. These almost always included at least one drunk person per shot. In many pictures, it was Ziva who was drunk. In one, she was leaning on Tony for balance, looking up at him with an open-mouthed smile. There were some pictures from Saturday nights spent clubbing and bar hopping. The lighting was usually bad in these pictures, but a few times they managed to get at least a partial team photo. There were pictures that Abby had gotten for caller IDs as well as from when she had stayed at Ziva's place while hers was fumigated. The last few pictures were team photos from various functions.

In almost every single photo, Ziva was smiling. She always stood tall, always looked her best, and was always full of life. She flirted and teased and flaunted her body, and yet she always commanded respect. The memories of that time were slowly emerging. This was the old Ziva. This was who she had been.

She understood then just what Dr. Herron had been asking her earlier. Ziva was pathetic, now. She was the crumbled ruins of a once-great fortress. She'd been ransacked and burned to the ground. There was little of worth left, and almost nothing with which to build herself back up. Even if she did manage to resurrect herself, she knew that she would never be as she once was. Never so brave, never so strong, never so beautiful. Perhaps that was why her father had not called. Perhaps he had been told of her destruction.

She thought seeing these pictures would help, and in a way they had, because the aim had been to free her memories. They had not, however, intended to free the ghosts and demons that came with them. Now that she'd been reminded of who she once was, there was no stopping her from holding herself up to that woman. Their differences stood in stark contrast, for one stood tall and proud, with nimble fingers and the lithe body of a dancer-turned-assassin, while the other was shriveled and bandaged and shook constantly with fear and confliction. Tears burned in this second woman's eyes, and it only made it worse because the woman she had been would not have cried.

Her eyes were wet and throat dry, so she stood up to get herself a glass of water. She headed to the kitchen and fumbled her way through the cabinet she'd seen Gibbs get into many times before. Her clumsy, heavy hands accidentally spilled a number of plastic glasses onto the floor. They fell with a clatter on the tile and suddenly Tony was there, going to bend down and help her pick them up. She trembled with her own inadequacies, but allowed him to help. Once all the extra cups had been put back in the cabinet, Ziva moved to the fridge to fill hers from the water dispenser in the door. Tony was there once again, moving to grab the cup from her hands and do it for her. She yanked it back.

"I can do it!" she snapped. "I am not an invalid—I can get myself a glass of water!"

He backed off, hands in the air. "I never said you couldn't. Just wanted to help."

"Well I do not need it," she sniffed.

"Never said you did."

"You would not have done that last year."

He raised an eyebrow. "Your fingers weren't broken last year."

"_I _was not broken, you mean?"

"Don't you put words in my mouth, Ziva," he warned. "You know damn well that's not what I meant."

"But it is true, is it not?"

"What, that you're _broken?"_

"Yes!"

"No. It's not. You've been hurt, badly, and yeah things are pretty messed up right now, but that doesn't mean you're broken."

"The woman you remember is gone, Tony. The woman in those pictures? I am not her. Not anymore. And I can never be her again."

"I agree."

"You agree?"

"Yeah, well, I've done a lot of thinking. And at first it really upset me, because I wanted my partner back. But I know now… I know that it's not possible. I also know that I'm okay with that. Too much has happened for you to go back to who you used to be."

"So you think I should give up? Resign myself to spending the rest of my life like…" she gestured to her bandaged and emaciated body, "like _this?_" She had been relying on him to guide her in the right direction. But if he did not think her capable of healing, how could she ever get better? He reached out, putting his hands on her shoulders. She flinched, but did not pull away.

"No, Ziva, I'm saying the exact opposite. I don't think you can be who you used to be—I think you can be _better_."

He left her with that comment and her empty plastic cup.

**. . .**

They did not speak much the rest of the day, and Ziva figured he was giving her room to process what he'd told her in the kitchen that afternoon. They did not speak after her nightmare, either, barring his usual whispered assertions of safety.

Ziva decided that night that if she wanted to believe the daily Somali reprises were indeed only nightmares, she might as well address them as such. By not calling them what they were, she was granting them power over her, and she knew that it had to stop. They were nightmares, Somalia was over, and Gibbs's house was the one and only reality. Even if she did not totally believe it, she felt a modicum of power return to her hands when she addressed the images that plagued her as what they truly were—nothing more than trauma-induced nightmares.

In her nightmares, Tony seemed to sense that she was winning her fight against him. He fought harder because of it. His tortures were more painful, more horrendously disfiguring, than any before, so much so that when she woke she was screaming at the top of her lungs and had to check to make sure various parts of her body were still intact. She clung to the _real_ Tony and tried to use his kind, soothing words to displace the cruel ones nightmare-Tony had used to try to undo all of the progress she had made.

Once she fell back to sleep against his warm, comforting body, the night passed quickly. They woke together and headed downstairs, and the first thing she laid eyes on was the box of her possessions still sitting on the coffee table. She realized then that the pit in her stomach, the one that had opened yesterday when she was reminded of the woman she used to be, had never truly gone away. As she absently nibbled at the scrambled eggs Gibbs made for her, she wondered if it ever would. There was no changing the fact that Ziva hated what she'd become.

She moved the box to the floor and pushed her puzzle back into the middle of the table, immersing herself in it. There were small patches of five or six pieces where she had managed to assemble some of them correctly, but she was still at a loss for how they all fit together. Besides that, she'd been able to connect some of the border, but that was it.

She grew distracted easily that day, because just to the side of Gibbs's mantle, on his largely empty bookshelf, was a locked metal safe. She knew what was in that safe. She had not paid attention to it before, but after yesterday with the knives she seemed to be hyper-aware of weapons of any sort. She'd wanted to remember her life before Somalia, but now that it was coming back to her she knew it was as much a curse as a gift. The ghost of her past self lingered, always drawn to the safe on the shelf or the case of throwing knives at the bottom of the cardboard box.

Tony noticed her staring, and she saw the anxiety pinching his stubbly features. Eventually, he simply could not keep quiet anymore.

"What are you staring at, Ziva?"

She blinked, looking back down at the puzzle. "Nothing."

"You're staring at the safe."

"Very observant," she answered dryly.

"You're worrying me."

"Do not worry. I am not going to try to use it." Even if her fingers weren't broken and trapped in plaster, she doubted she had the means or skill to practice shooting. She did not think that she'd forgotten how to handle a gun altogether, because she had been doing that since she was twelve and it was likely come back to her like riding a bike. No, she simply no longer had an interest in weapons for weapons' sake. Perhaps that was why she could not tear her gaze from the gun safe, because she did not care and she _should_ have. Her old self would have wanted nothing more than to start shooting again, start sparring and throwing knives, while her new self only wanted to work on her puzzle in peace.

There was obvious relief in Tony's face when she said she would not try to use the gun.

"Good. Because I couldn't take it, you know. If you…"

Her eyes widened, catching on to his meaning. "Wait. When did this become about… about _that?_"

"When you spent yesterday arguing with me that you're broken and beyond fixing, and then spent today staring at a _gun_, Ziva." He frowned. "Was that not what you were talking about?"

"I was talking about _target practice,"_ she emphasized. "I would never…"

He looked as thought he'd had the wind knocked out of him. "You don't have to lie to me, Ziva."

"I am not lying!"

"I was the one who found you in that cell," he reminded her.

"So?"

"So, I know what I saw."

It took her a moment, but the memories swept over her like a tidal wave. She could smell the stench of whiskey breath hot in her nostrils, could feel the trail of biting, sloppy kisses he left on her neck, could feel the tearing pain _below_ and the complete horror, humiliation, and sickening disgust that escalated in time with his movements—_him,_ the man with Tony's face but not Tony's compassion. She could feel the ache in her fingers as she twisted what was left of her bloodied, soiled cargo pants; twisted and tied and tried so desperately to ensure that this never happened again. After over three months of inhuman torture, she'd finally reached her breaking point, and it manifested in the makeshift noose that was her last hope.

"Oh."

It came out as almost a squeak. Her voiceless exclamation carried the weight of that fateful night before her rescue.

"Yeah. Oh."

"You cannot equate what happened there to what could happen here," she promised. "They are very different situations."

He shrugged. "Hopelessness is hopelessness."

She longed to take his hand. "Tony," she whispered, "I am not hopeless anymore."

"I thought you still didn't believe any of this was even real?"

She shook her head. "You have helped me more than you know in the past few days," she admitted lowly. "I have… I have started to believe."

"Just like that?"

"It was not _easy._ I still have trouble remembering that Somalia is really over. But I am… I am better than before, yes?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did not want to get your hopes up yet," she told him. She heaved a sigh and continued, "You do not need to worry, Tony, I promise. I am not going to kill myself."

Spoken aloud, the last two words forced the air from his lungs in a shuddering exhale. "That's… that's good."

And then they went back to the puzzle.

**. . .**

Tony shook her awake from yet another nightmare, one in which his counterpart snarled cruel and mocking insults and complemented them with lashes of a bullwhip delivered to every inch of her screaming body. The pain had brought tears to her eyes that transcended the realms, leaking from her eyes even as she returned to reality and found refuge in a gentle man's embrace. His soft words stood in such stark contrast to the terrifying, flaming ones that she'd been bombarded with in her nightmare, and it only wanted to make her cry even more. Her hot tears slid down her cheeks and were absorbed in the soft fabric of his shirt, and she cried into him like the little girl they'd seen only a few days ago in the park. Her usual trembling turned to wracking sobs and she did not think he'd ever held her as tightly and protectively as he did that night. Even through her sobs she could hear Gibbs get up across the hall and peer through the doorway, checking to ensure that his senior agent was handling it. Eventually he retreated back to bed, and eventually Ziva's eyes ran dry.

"I am sorry," she sniffed as Tony lay them down on the pillow.

"Rule six."

"Is that the one about apologies?"

"Mhmm," he hummed, running his fingers through her hair. She shuddered.

"I am a bucket case, Tony."

She heard his low and throaty chuckle vibrate in his chest. "Basket case," he corrected. "And I missed hearing you do that."

"Perhaps not everything about me has changed, yes?"

"You're still _Ziva. _Everything about you that really matters is still there," he promised. He paused for a moment, letting her digest this, before elaborating. "I know being a soldier and Mossad and whatever has been a huge part of your identity for basically your whole life. I get that. But it doesn't have to be like that anymore. You've got a lot more in you than just what your father made you to be. You can start new. Clean slate."

The mention of her father made her heart ache. "People like me do not get clean slates, Tony."

"People like you?"

"If you knew only half the things I have done…" she whispered, staring blankly into the darkness.

"I know you. I know you did what you did because you thought you were doing the right thing for your country. You weren't some merciless killer, Ziva."

"You know what they say about the road to hell."

He shook his head. "I know you've done things you regret. But don't you think you've paid for your sins a thousand times over by now?"

She took his words into her, where they fed the growing fire of righteous indignation that burned in her tattered soul. She wanted to believe that she deserved to be happy. She _wanted_ that clean slate. She wanted to allow herself to finally find peace.

"This is a new start, Ziva. You get to build your life the way _you_ want to, this time."

She nestled herself into him and decided that nothing had ever sounded so sweet.


	7. Chapter 7

**. . .**

**Part VII**

**. . .**

"My leave ends tomorrow."

Ziva looked up from a plate of lasagna into a pair of blue eyes. "You will be returning to work?"

"Yep," Gibbs nodded. "Got a team to run."

"I understand," she stated, but her voice was thick. Gibbs's presence was comforting even though they did not often talk—or perhaps because of it. She'd grown to like the faint sound of sandpaper against cedar, the strong aroma of coffee in the morning, the grilled-cheese sandwiches he made and cut into little triangles for lunch. She liked his silent presence in the recliner next to the couch as he watched ZNN on low volume and she worked on her puzzle. She liked the idle ease of it all. What she did not like was change, nor being alone. She'd had enough isolation this past summer to last her a lifetime. With a glance across the table she remembered there was still Tony, but what was initially comforting quickly soured. "Does that mean you will be returning, too?" She spoke directly to him, trying to hide her worry. The memory of what happened the last time she'd isolated herself was still prominent in her memory. The remnants of the darkness throbbed in the corners of her vision.

"I'd been going to work up until the last few days, so I've still got time in the bank. Plus I've got comp time saved up." Tony cast a sideways glance at Gibbs, who nodded. The younger man continued. "That's actually what we wanted to talk to you about."

Her fork went loose in her already tenuous grasp and she felt her stomach twist.

"DiNozzo's been spending a lot of time here," Gibbs continued. "He's crashed on my couch every night the past few days. The guy's a mess." Ziva noticed the few days' worth of stubble framing Tony's face, his rumpled shirt, baggy eyes, and wild hair. "He's practically living here, because for whatever reason, him being around's helping you." She looked down at her abandoned plate.

"I am sorry. I did not mean to disrupt your lives like this."

"Ziver, we're not telling you this to make you feel guilty."

"What, then?" she asked, eyes burning.

"Ziva," Tony interjected, cutting to the chase, "how do you feel about moving to my place?"

Her heart sputtered. For a moment, all she could do was stare blankly at him. "I…"

"You don't have to give an answer now," he rushed to promise. "Just think about it."

"Seems like you're getting more and more comfortable with Tony around," Gibbs observed. "You've improved a lot since he's been over, too. I think it'll do you both good."

She blinked. Her hands itched under their casts. "Is this one of your tough love things, Gibbs?"

"This is a logic thing. You've healed more in the past few days with him around than the weeks before combined," he reasoned, jerking his thumb to his senior agent. His eyes softened. "I wouldn't be suggesting this if I thought you two couldn't handle it or weren't ready."

She nodded bravely. "I will think about it."

And think about it she did. She mulled it over while Gibbs stood and collected her dish, scraped the food into the trashcan, and placed it in the dishwasher. She ran through the lists of pros and cons over and over again as she watched the autumn sun set above the rooftops. She examined the prospect from every angle with a critical eye, trying to force emotion from her thought process and rely solely on the more dependable pathway of logic.

By the time she crawled into bed that night, she had made her decision.

**. . .**

He pulled her from the nightmare just as he always did. No sooner had the first scream erupted from her chest than she felt his firm hands grasping her shoulders and heard his low voice ushering her home. The desert disintegrated into grains of sand and fell away, leaving only a cool, dark bedroom and a gentle, wide-eyed man. She crumpled against him and allowed him to lay them back down, his head on the pillow and hers pillowed on his chest. He traced loose, circular patterns over her back as she evened her breathing.

"You okay?"

"Yes," she whispered, musing once again at how easy it was to lay up against him like this, so close that their legs tangled together deep beneath the sheets.

Silence for a moment, then, "I didn't mean to spring that on you like that. Or to make you feel like we were ganging up on you."

She shook her head. "You did not. You had to ask sometime, yes?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure there were better ways to bring it up."

"That does not matter now."

"No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

She inhaled deeply at sat up, turning around to face him. "I have been thinking… and I believe I have made a decision." He propped himself up on his elbows. She could see in his eyes that his mind was reeling.

"That was quick. What'd you decide?"

"Yes."

He raised his eyebrows. "Yes… as in yes, you'll move to my place?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"It's that easy?"

"Did you think you would have to persuade me?"

"Well… yeah, Ziva, I did."

She shrugged. "It is the logical thing to do." Doubt crept up in his expression.

"Logical doesn't mean it's right."

"I have burdened Gibbs long enough, yes? And it is selfish to expect you to spend all your time away from home because of me. So long as you do not mind, it makes sense to stay with you."

Just like that, his face fell. "Ziva… you're not a _burden._" He looked sick. "And you're definitely not selfish, I mean… Come on."

Her gaze flickered down to rest on her captive hands. Her breaths were small and audible. "I know I am not easy to care for. I do not _do_ anything, except poke at food and move around pieces of that stupid puzzle. My hands are useless. I scream in my sleep."

"That doesn't make you a burden," he promised, "just like wanting me around to help you heal doesn't make you selfish." He sighed, cocking his head to the side. "Ziva, I want you to come live with me. But I want you to do it for the right reasons."

"And what would those be?"

"Because you think it will help you get better."

"I do."

"I don't want you to feel obligated to do something you're not comfortable with."

"And who says I am not comfortable with it?"

"Absolutely _everything _about your body language right now."

Her attention shifted to her slumped shoulders and her heavy arms wrapped across her stomach. She bristled, realizing this conversation was going to require a level of open honesty she was not totally prepared to achieve. She looked at his round, expectant eyes and his hands that twitched to take hers, and sighed.

"It is not always easy to be around you," she confessed. "I am not always comfortable with you so close. The memories… they are still so vivid. But even if I am not _comfortable_ all the time, it helps me to be around you." She wished, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that she could slip her hands into his. "You are so unlike him, Tony," she murmured, shaking her head. "Being around you proves to me that he is not real. Even if it is not always easy."

He took a moment to mull over her heartfelt words, and she thought she saw heat rise to his face. "You really haven't changed that much, you know that? You've still got that trial-by-fire attitude, like always. You never could take the easy way out."

She shrugged. "I tried the easy way out. I tried pushing you away. It did not work."

"And here we are."

"Yes. Here we are."

"You really want to do this?"

"There is no good reason why I should not," she confirmed. "So long as you have enough room. Do you not only have one bedroom?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "My couch is pretty comfy, don't worry."

"Good. Then I will take it."

He quirked an eyebrow. "No. Nuh-uh. No way. I've got the couch."

"That is hardly fair considering—"

"I swear to God, Ziva, if you give me any of that 'burden' crap…"

She felt the foreign desire to chuckle build in her throat. "I was only going to say that, as you are being generous enough to take me into your home, it is not fair to ask you to give up your bed as well."

"Like I said, the couch is pretty comfy. I've fallen asleep there plenty of times and been fine." He did not say what she knew they were both thinking—that he would spend the majority of the night in the bed with her, anyhow. "So this is happening, then?"

She breathed out, lying back down against him. Her body deflated, muscles relaxed. "Yes."

A moment of thought, then, "Gibbs was right."

"Hmm?" she hummed into his shirt.

"You've come a hell of a long way."

She remembered those hospital days, so full of fear and anxiety and mistrust. She remembered thinking there was no more terrifying a sight than Tony's face, remembered screaming at the nurses to keep him away, remembered shaking like a leaf whenever his name was mentioned.

So when she considered where she was now, with his hand strong and steady on her back and the length of her body pressed comfortably against his, she basked in the absence of fear and agreed.

**. . .**

The only thing that she would truly miss from Gibbs's house was his backyard. She liked the privacy, the hammock, the back porch, and watching the small animals dart in and out of the bushes. Tony's third floor apartment had none of those things. It did have, however, a small park and a walking path lined with benches just out back, which was supposedly comparable. Or so he told her. She remembered very little about her former partner's home, just like she remembered very little about most other things from her life before it all crumbled.

She did not have many possessions. There was the box of items McGee had cleaned from her desk at NCIS, the two pairs of pajamas that Abby had bought her, and the sweat pants and sweatshirt of Gibbs's she'd been living in until a few days ago, when they brought her own from her locker at NCIS. Even her own clothes hung loose on her still-skeletal frame. She had very little, and for the first time in months she felt the absence of her necklace burning a hole in her chest.

They loaded her meager belongings into the trunk of Gibbs's Charger and said goodbye to the quiet, white-trimmed house that she'd come to appreciate. Tony followed close behind them as they made their way to the other side of the city. When she paid attention to the streets, she could almost remember when and where Gibbs was going to turn before he put the signal on. She recognized some storefronts, some stoplights, and some exit ramps. The humming city of the nation's capital thrived around her, soothing and familiar despite, or perhaps because of, the car horns and occasional screech of tires.

They took the elevator up to Tony's apartment, knowing full well that Ziva could not yet handle two consecutive flights of stairs. They arrived at his door and he slipped in and turned the key. The door swung open to reveal a space that she immediately recognized. She could almost smell the greasy take-out pizza, hear the car chase blaring through his speaker system, feel his warm and easy presence at her side. She shivered.

It was as clean as always, save for the occasional empty bottle of beer littering the surfaces of the coffee table, mantle, and beautiful baby grand piano. Sunlight filtered in through the sheer curtains drawn against his living room window, bouncing off the dust motes that floated through the air when Tony crossed the room and pulled back the fabric. The room flooded with light and she blinked, temples throbbing sympathetically. She would get used to it.

The two men deposited her possessions next to Tony's bed, a queen sized affair with a dark, muted comforter. It looked comfortable, and even though it was early evening and she had barely lifted a finger, Ziva could suddenly feel the weight of her exhaustion tugging on her. Broken sleep was better than no sleep at all, but she longed to just sink her head into the pillow and drift, uninterrupted until morning. She remembered the kind-faced nurses and longed suddenly for the little white pills they'd given her every night. At least then she could get some peace.

"McGee and Abbs are gonna join us for dinner in a few," Gibbs told her from the doorway. "She's bringing some sort of casserole."

Ziva nodded. Casserole was good. It still hurt her jaw to chew.

She muttered an excuse about using the bathroom and disappeared into the one that adjoined Tony's room. It was just as clean as the rest of the house, and nothing like the bachelor pad she'd imagined. Was she surprised, the first time she saw his apartment? Had she teased him? She did not remember.

In his bright and spotless home, she felt even more out of place than she had initially at Gibbs's. She caught her own reflection in the mirror and mused that she looked like a speck of dirt, a dark stain, a blemish against his smooth cream walls. Her wild, unkempt mane of hair framed her bruised-yellow face. Her cheekbones were hollow, shadowed. Lost brown eyes peaked out from behind heavy, black eyelashes. Grey fleece wrapped around and swallowed the rest of her, bearing across her chest the acronym of an agency she no longer could claim to be a part of. She'd left, chosen her father because she did not know how to disobey him. She still didn't, really, because even in the face of certain death she'd chosen to follow his orders, make him proud one last time. But even martyrdom, it seemed, was not enough to garner his pride. It had been almost a month since her rescue, and his lack of contact was enough to prove his disinterest.

She knew then that she would never again follow him. She was done blindly obeying a man who could not even be bothered to pick up a phone for his own daughter. After everything she'd done for him, everything she'd been subjected to, she was done. There was not an ounce of obedience left in her broken bones. The memory of a distant hallucination came over and permeated her like smoke. She remembered the fire in her veins, bodies of everyone she'd loved dead at her feet, her father's disinterested expression as he gazed upon the scene and her helpless, trembling form.

And, ultimately, she remembered his straight-backed, purposeful gait as he walked away from the only family he had left. He turned away from the girl bound to the chair, the one who wept, whose spirit and sanity seeped blood red from her gaping wounds. It dripped and pooled on the floor below her, mingling with the dust and dirt. Irretrievable.

"Ziva?"

Her mouth tasted faintly of salt and rust. She swallowed. "I am here."

"Abby and McGee just got here," Gibbs continued in a voice too tender to fit the usually gruff man. "You comin' out?"

"Yes," she responded, tearing her eyes from the woman in the mirror's and turning the knob with her only two unbroken fingers. She pushed open the door and saw his retreating back move into the kitchen. She followed.

Abby's face brightened the second Ziva appeared, and it was obvious that she was having difficulty staying at her place on the island barstool. McGee, who was sitting at her side, offered an easy smile.

"I made tuna noodle casserole. It's an old family recipe, it's _really_ good. Not quite how my Nana made it, but pretty close." Abby's eyes widened. "Oh, before I forget! I got you some new clothes. Want to go change before we eat?"

"You did not have to do that, Abby," Ziva protested weakly as Abby swung around the granite counter with a shopping bag in her hand.

"Do you seriously think I was gonna let you live in that sweatshirt forever? Come on, let's get you fixed up."

It turned out that Abby had brought more than clothes. She had a brush, hair ties, face wash, body lotion, shampoo, conditioner—many things Ziva hadn't thought about needing in her move to Tony's. From under all of this she pulled out two pairs of leggings and one pair of cargo pants, along with various sweaters and t-shirts. There were also multiple pairs of socks, underpants, and a bra that she wouldn't be able to wear until her wounds healed. All of this Abby laid out at the bottom of Tony's bed.

"I tried to buy comfy stuff, and stuff I thought I could see you wearing. I don't know if you'll want to wear the cargo pants, they're not as comfortable, but you used to wear them a lot and I figured you might want something familiar."

Ziva looked down at her friend's purchases, mouth slack. "Abby, this is… too much. I cannot repay you." The black-haired woman shook her head.

"I just want to help. You'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?"

Ziva shuddered at the mere thought of her vibrant and naïve friend going through something like Somalia. "Of course."

"Good. Now what do you want to wear tonight?"

Ziva picked out a pair of leggings and a black-and-white striped, knit sweater. Abby helped her into the clothes. It felt inexplicably nice to wear something different, even if the form fitting material felt strange around her legs.

"You can see the bandages through them," Ziva observed, concerned. Abby shrugged.

"No one'll care, don't worry."

Next, Abby moved on to Ziva's hair, sitting her down on the edge of the bed and running the brush through the messy curls. Ziva winced when the bristles caught a knot, the familiar feeling of her hair being yanked putting a different kind of knot in her stomach.

"Can I braid it?"

The question caught Ziva off guard, for no one had asked her that since Tali had died. She nodded, heart in her throat.

"I should take you to get it cut," Abby mused as she tugged section over section. "It's pretty damaged."

Ziva knew it was the truth. She imagined her scalp to be peppered with tiny bald spots, from when they'd yanked too hard and ripped entire strands from her head. The ends, too, were uneven and frazzled messes.

"I can take you to the girl that cuts mine tomorrow, if you want?"

"Okay," Ziva conceded, not willing to tell Abby no. She felt a surge of anxiety as she realized that meant going out in public.

Abby tied off the braid, smoothing it down her back. Ziva sighed contentedly, feeling relieved to have her hair out of her face. Her casts made it very difficult to take care of a lot of things, and her hair was one of them.

They went back out to the kitchen then, where they were greeted with a chorus of _you look nice, Ziva'_sand other variations thereupon. With her hair up, she felt more vulnerable but at the same time more put together, like she was less of a mess.

They sat down at the table together and enjoyed a nice, quiet meal. Tony ate his weight in food despite complaining about its fish and mushroom content. Ziva ate quite a bit, as well, to the pleasure of all those there that night. Abby took great pride in the fact that it was her cooking that could make Ziva finish almost everything on her plate.

It was nice to have them all together, Ziva found. It brought back fuzzy, distant memories of round booths in dim-lit, low-key bars and celebrations of this accomplishment or that birthday or a long case finally brought to a close. She remembered the pictures they'd showed her yesterday, many of which had been taken at such events. But it had been a long time since the five of them had been gathered together to break bread and share stories. Ziva was content just to listen, let them fill her brain with colorful stories that perhaps could coax back the memories she was still missing.

After dinner, the men cleaned up the kitchen and Abby took Ziva back to the bathroom to help her shower and change her bandages. By that time, Ziva was used to baring herself for Abby, even if not totally comfortable with it. The cool air hit her skin as Abby pulled off the bandages, and she shivered. Abby slipped the plastic bags over Ziva's casts, tied them off, and helped her into the tub.

Abby's visits never failed to make Ziva miss her mother. Her friend bathed her, bandaged her, dressed her, and tucked her in like a little child. Despite all she'd suffered, in those moments Ziva felt very young.

Abby pressed a feather-light kiss to her forehead, whispering good night as she headed to the door and shut off the light.

"_Laila tov,_" Ziva responded sleepily, and drifted.

**. . .**

The nightmare that night left her gasping for air and clinging to Tony like a life raft. The closer Ziva came to truly believing that the desert world was a dream, the harder her torturer fought back. She'd noticed the escalation the night after she allowed Tony back, and it had only gotten worse from there. The severity of the techniques that man used had now surpassed anything he'd dared to do in real life. He had started to inflict real, _permanent_ damage on her body.

That night, the Tony of her nightmares had pinned her wrist to the floor, drawn his knife from his belt, and sliced off two of her fingers.

The real Tony, the one that sat on the side of the bed and rubbed comforting circles on her slumped back, whispered gentle assurances in her ear. She shook as she tried to shove far away the image of her thin, scratched, and disembodied fingers lying in a pool of blood a few feet next to her head. She held her right hand up, and over Tony's shoulder she looked down into the cast. Inside were all four fingers. She shuddered an exhale and let her torso fall limp, fighting the urge to vomit.

Tony knew the drill. He maneuvered the two of them oh so carefully until they were lying together flat on the bed. With one hand he pulled the comforter up to her neck and with the other he continued his soothing circles.

"You okay?"

"I will be," she whispered. "Eventually."

**. . .**

Abby picked her up at noon for the hair appointment. Ziva and Tony had slept late, not getting up until half past nine, and had a lazy morning in which he attempted to make pancakes. Ziva had wondered, from her place on the other side of the island, if he was not purposefully screwing up to amuse her. Eventually they ate, but once they finished and the kitchen had been cleaned, heavy silence had ensued. The two of them were alone in his small apartment, and neither had any idea what to do.

Ziva had ended up on the couch with a worn paperback novel in her rigid hands, and she wondered if Tony had not eventually noticed that she would go as long as ten minutes without flipping the page. She had not been able to focus. The words swam on the page, dizzying and overwhelming her.

So she was grateful when Abby arrived, if not a bit anxious. Disregarding the hospital visits and the walk to the park down the street, this was Ziva's first public excursion. She'd looked in the mirror—she knew what she looked like. A zombie, a dead woman walking, someone to avoid. Ziva had slipped on the cargo pants and the nicest looking top Abby had brought, hoping to at least appear somewhat human.

"Oh, Ziva, you look…" Abby trailed off, and Ziva tensed, "…like you. You look like you."

It only soothed Ziva's nerves a little.

Tony bid them goodbye and the two women left the apartment, going downstairs and hopping into Abby's hearse. The drive to the salon was not long, and fortunately they had arrived before Ziva could regret agreeing to come.

A baby-faced young woman with pink-tipped hair greeted them at the door, Abby with a friendly kiss to the cheek and Ziva with a courteous nod. Abby introduced the woman and together they guided Ziva to a chair by the sinks.

Ziva zoned out as Abby gave the hairdresser instructions. It was not until a smock was draped over her and a thin piece of paper secured tight around her neck that she became alerted to what was happening around her. Her jaw tightened.

Then the chair began to move, first going downwards, then reclining. Her breath caught in her throat as she came to a rest with her neck surrounded by cold porcelain. Then she heard the water, felt it cascading down her scalp and over her brow, and she wanted to cry. She screwed her eyes shut and tried to pace her breathing, remind herself that she was in a hair salon and not a torture cell, but she was horizontal and someone's hand was on her arm and there was something tight around her neck and someone was pouring _water_ over her head and she couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't—

"Ziva? Ziva, open your eyes, hey, it's okay." Her eyelids fluttered and she could see Abby standing over her, fear painted all over her face. "She's just gonna wash your hair. Okay? Breathe. You can breathe." Ziva felt something warm wrap around her protruding twig of a thumb. She knew Abby was doing her best to hold her hand.

Her eyes and lungs burned, but she sucked in a rattling breath and suffered through it. Salt water leaked out from beneath her lids and left a trail all the way down to her ear. She needed to hold on to something—her friend, the arms of the chair, _anything_. If she could have squeezed Abby's hand back, she would have. But her fingers were broken and trapped in plaster, so she floundered.

The hairdresser wrapped a towel around her dripping head and the back of the chair began to move back up. Ziva blinked and Abby said something, but she could not hear it over the deafening _thump thump thump_ of her panicked heart.

A half hour later, her knots had been brushed out, her split ends trimmed, and hair blow dried. The woman turned her around in the chair to see the improvements. Ziva ran her thumb over her clean and tidy curls, which, though still dull and lacking their old luster, looked much better than the tangled and torn mess from before. Despite the earlier panic, she was glad she agreed to this. She felt more human—more like a woman.

"Thank you," she bid hoarsely to the hairdresser, who smiled in response.

"No problem, anytime. I hope everything works out for you, Ziva."

The kindness of a stranger was oddly disconcerting. Ziva had grown to distrust those she did not know, and even those she did. In her visits to the hospital, she noticed the way people would stare when they thought she wasn't looking, their pitiful and curious gazes swiftly moving away when she turned to face them. Others averted their eyes completely, as if her suffering and despair clung to her skin and made her too sad, disgusting, even, to look at. Mothers held their children close when she sat near them in the waiting room. People moved far to the other side of the hallway when she passed. And never,_ never,_ did anyone but that little boy in the park speak to her. He had been too young, too innocent to recognize that she was someone to avoid. But adults saw it, and whether out of pity or shame or revulsion they refused to make eye contact with her, refused to offer even a word of kindness to the bruised and battered woman with the slumped shoulders and sad eyes.

So when the girl with the pink-tipped hair smiled at her, wished her well, and called her by name, Ziva did not know how to respond. She gulped and opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out. The moment passed. Ziva watched with a mixture of gratefulness and self-directed disdain as Abby paid the woman for her services. The hairdresser tried to wave her off, insisting that it was a friend doing a friend a favor and Abby owed nothing, but the black-haired woman practically shoved the money in her face. Ziva watched on the sidelines, disconnected.

"It looks a lot better," Abby noted as they drove back to Tony's apartment. "Just needed some TLC."

The expression was familiar, its meaning on the tip of Ziva's tongue. "TLC?"

"Tender loving care. Or The Learning Channel, if you're into mindless reality TV, and you don't exactly strike me as the 'John and Kate Plus 8' type. I don't even think you had cable. Did you even have a TV?" Abby's ramblings made Ziva strangely comfortable.

"I… I think I did." To answer the question, she tried to picture her old apartment, and it was fuzzy but still clearer than many of the other memories. Still, the image of Michael bleeding out in the middle of the living room was the first to her brain. The traumatic memories were always the easiest to recall.

In her mind, the scene wavered between Tony standing above Michael with a gun and an expression of satisfaction, and Tony lying almost beneath him on the ground, panting and reeling and looking up at her with fearful dread. The first was a scenario born of her fevered, drug-addled imagination, one that strived to rewrite the past so that the present made sense. And the second, according to everyone but the man from her nightmares, was reality. She much preferred reality.

Abby took them through a drive-thru for lunch, ordering meals for herself, Ziva, and Tony. When they returned to the apartment, he greeted them at the door and grinned when he saw the bags. Both of them thanked Abby, and Ziva allowed a goodbye hug. It was gentler than she remembered her friend's hugs ever being. But Ziva knew she was fragile, so she appreciated it.

"I have a surprise for you," Tony began after he shut the door behind Abby. Ziva quirked an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"It's not all that exciting," he promised, leading her into the dining room where she found her puzzle spread out across one half of the table. Some of the groupings were out of place, but every piece she'd fit together seemed to be there.

"My puzzle?"

Tony shrugged, sitting the white paper bags of greasy fast-food on the kitchen counter. "I figured you'd want to finish it."

"You drove all the way to Gibbs's to get this for me?"

"It's not that far of a drive."

"Thank you, Tony," she expressed sincerely. She was grateful to have something to work on, something with which to busy her healing hands.

"No problem," he promised, brushing it off with a change of subject. "I'm gonna put the food on some plates and then we'll eat. It smells delicious."

"It smells like diabetes," Ziva teased, surprising herself. She trotted after Tony into the kitchen.

"It looks too good to care." He pulled out the trashcan to toss in the empty bags, and Ziva noticed that it was half-full of takeout containers.

"You have been getting takeout a lot lately," she observed. He shrugged, turning his back to her to plate their lunches.

"Well I've been at Gibbs's the past few nights. But yeah, before that, I, uh… I wasn't in the best place."

She couldn't help herself. "Because of me," she deadpanned. For a moment, she thought his hand froze in midair. He dumped the fries onto her plate and turned back around, sliding it in front of her along with a glass of water.

"Yeah," he admitted. "It wasn't easy being so far away and knowing you were struggling."

"I did not mean to hurt you. I thought I was… sparing you, by keeping you away."

"I guess it didn't help either of us in the long run, huh?"

She remembered his baggy, bloodshot eyes, and the way her nightmares had slowly begun to permeate and engulf reality. "No, it didn't," she agreed.

"So now we're here."

"It appears we learned our lesson, yes?"

"What, that we're bad at being together but terrible at being apart?"

Eyes downcast, she picked up and inspected a french fry. "Yes."

"For the record, Ziva," he began, leaning up against the counter, and she knew he wanted her to look at him. "I didn't mean to hurt you, either."

That last part did the trick. The fry fell back to her plate and she looked up with wide eyes. "You did not," she promised, sounding strangely desperate.

"But there's a part of your brain that thinks I did," he continued, gaze heavy. "Something I did made you pick _me_ as the man who…" He shuddered. "I know it's probably what happened with Rivkin. And I know we never really… talked about that. But I'm sorry, Ziva. I promise I was trying to protect you. I didn't want to kill him."

Ziva looked horrified. "_Tony…_ you cannot blame yourself for what happened. I still do not know exactly what happened or why, but I know you are not responsible for what I imagined." She took a deep breath. "You are here now. That is all I care about."

"I…" he seemed at a loss for words, and strangely relieved. She wondered how long he'd waited to hear those words out loud. She knew that guilt had weighed heavily, oppressively, on his shoulders since the day she woke up in the hospital and started screaming at him, since the day he realized what she believed he'd done. She understood what it meant to feel responsible for other's pain. She'd tortured her fair share of people in her lifetime, and terrorists or not she knew no one deserved that. Their screams clung to her, and not even four months of agonizing penance had been able to absolve her of those sins. This was different, she knew, both in that his victim was someone he treasured and that he had not _actually_ done anything wrong. But she had thought he did, and she'd been able to see in his eyes how suffocating that knowledge was.

He was the one to avert his eyes this time, looking down at his plate and suddenly becoming very fascinated with his cheeseburger. She studied him, hoping her words today would relieve him of some of his guilt.

"Ziva…" he sounded like he'd been kicked in the stomach, "are you ever gonna tell me what happened?"

She frowned. "What?"

"Do you think you'll ever be able to tell me your story? About what you saw? About what I—what you_ thought_ I did?"

She shook her head immediately and vigorously, ignoring the ache in her neck and temple. "You do not want to know."

"I _need_ to know," he countered, almost begging. She took a deep breath, fighting back the fear that came with the prospect of reliving her time in the terror camp. To speak it out loud would mean to acknowledge her suffering, to let it out into this world that she was so desperate to keep safe from the memory of those months. The second her story escaped from her mouth she would be unable to control it, and she feared what it could do. But at the same time, the idea of letting it out was tempting. Somalia lived inside of her like a parasite, wrapping itself around her consciousness and draining her at every chance it got. Perhaps she needed to get it out, so that once it was in the open it could be squashed, destroyed forever. Despite this, a part of her still hoped that if she pushed Somalia down deep enough within her, that dreaded confrontation would never come to pass.

"Not now," she answered, still ruled by her fear. "Not yet. It is still too soon."

He nodded, understanding. "But you will?"

"Probably," she sighed. "Eventually."

That seemed to be good enough for him, because he nodded and turned his attention back to his food. Still, he was quiet, pensive.

They finished lunch in silence and Ziva retired back to the dining room to work on the puzzle. She spent most of the time rearranging the border Tony had had to break to transport it. The sunlight shone brightly through the window behind her, warming her back, complemented by a light autumn breeze. Tony had placed a screen on and opened the window, recognizing her desire for fresh air.

It was about half-past two when the phone rang, piercing the comfortable silence and making Ziva jump. Tony, who was reclining on the couch, apologized and answered on the second ring. She looked over just in time to see the color drain from his face.

"How'd you get this number?" she heard him ask as he looked up at her with a dark and nervous expression. Silence for a moment, then, "Fine." His words were clipped and resentful, eyes almost murderous. His expression sent a chill of fear through her, but she found herself walking toward him anyhow. Soon she was at his side and he was handing her the phone.

"It's your father," he stated, words dripping with disgust but wide green eyes apologetic.

She did not believe him at first. Her father? No. That did not make sense. Her father had not called or asked about her once in the month since her miraculous rescue. Her father did not care whether she lived or died, even if she'd died in his name. How could she be expected to believe he would call now?

She accepted the phone in paralyzed, plaster-encased hands. After a few moments of struggle it became evident that it was too difficult to hold the phone to her ear, so Tony pressed the speaker button, sat it down on the coffee table, and ushered her onto the couch next to him.

"_Ziva?"_ came the voice through the speaker, thick with the accent of her homeland. This voice speaking her name was one of the earliest things she remembered. _Ziva, get down from there. Ziva, clean that up. You can do better, Ziva. Stop crying, Ziva._

"Abba," she greeted hoarsely. She could feel her heart galloping in her throat. "What is it you want?" She spoke in Hebrew, partly to keep the conversation private but mostly because it was easier on her frazzled, reeling mind.

"_Ziva! It is good to hear your voice."_

She scowled. "You do not have to lie." For a moment, there was static silence from the other end.

"_Why would you think I am lying?"_

She gritted her teeth. "Because it has been a month."

"_Since you were rescued?"_ She did not miss the emphasis he put on that last word, and she wondered then if he was ashamed of her for having lived to be saved. He had always taught her to save herself or die trying. Perhaps he was angry that she'd survived.

"It certainly was not through any effort on your part," she spat, and she could almost _hear_ his eyebrows raising. She knew him well. She could practically see his face, the complete absence of any happiness or pride in his daughter, which were the very things she'd hoped so desperately to achieve. She was well acquainted with this expression of disappointment.

"_I looked for you. But Mossad could not spare the manpower for an extraction mission. You understand."_

No, no she didn't understand. She was his daughter, after all. Should he not have done absolutely everything he could to save her, exhausted every angle until she was home safe? He was the Director of Mossad. There was nothing he couldn't do, no rule he couldn't bend.

Unless it was for someone as worthless as her.

She didn't understand, but she did not know how to tell him that. She did not know how to tell him why she was so furious, because she knew he would fire back something about the importance of the safety of a nation, as if he couldn't have spared anything for his daughter—his daughter that had gone to the desert to die for him.

"_Malachi is flying out tonight. He will meet you at Dulles. When you land you are to come straight to headquarters."_

Her chest burned, eyes burned, vision went red. "What are you talking about?"

"_You will be coming home."_

Her nostrils flared, and she bared her teeth. "No," she growled. Adrenaline flooded her veins.

This was the first time she had ever said no to him.

"_These are your orders, Ziva! You will obey them."_

"I do not answer to you anymore," she seethed, voice low and dangerous.

"_So long as you are a part of Mossad and so long as you are my daughter, you do!"_

"Consider this my formal resignation. I have no obligation to you. You are not my father. Fathers do not leave their daughters in the desert to _die,_ and fathers _call_ when their daughters are raised from the dead. I am done, Eli. You are all but dead to me." Her chest heaved. Hot, angry tears leaked from her fiery eyes. "I will not be returning to Israel. I will not be returning to Mossad. I will not be returning to _you._ America is my home now. You will do well to never contact me again."

"_Ziva, how _dare_ you speak to m—"_

Eli's angry tirade was cut off when Tony swooped down and pressed the button to turn off speaker. He held the phone up to his ear with furious, shaking hands.

"Lose this number, Eli. Don't ever call back. She never wants to see you again. She's been through hell, and she deserves better than a self-righteous, careless bastard like you. Your daughter is an amazing woman, and now you've lost her and it's_ your_ fault. Enjoy the rest of your miserable, lonely life."

He flipped the phone shut and tossed it back onto the table with a clatter. Barely seconds passed before his arms found their way around her shaking shoulders. He held her tightly, securely, as if he were afraid she would fall apart if not for his embrace. She buried her hot face in his shirt and tried to breathe through distraught, gasping sobs.

She was furious, and she was sad. After a lifetime of orders and kisses and absent pride, _this_ was how it ended. She buried her face in Tony's chest and grieved with burning, angry tears.

"I don't know Hebrew," Tony began, hesitantly. "But I know the word 'no' when I hear it. You stood up to him." It wasn't a question, just an awe-struck statement.

"He ordered me back to Israel," she whispered, shuddering. He ran a soothing hand over the back of her shoulders.

"You were right to do what you did. Like I said, he doesn't deserve you. He's an asshole." She remembered Tony's words spat angrily into the receiver, how he'd intervened when he noticed her beginning to collapse on herself. No, he didn't speak Hebrew, and he didn't know exactly what had transpired between her and her father that day, but he understood. She was grateful.

"He was my _father,_" she lamented, words so low as to be a moan. "I loved him." Fury peaked once again and she pulled back to meet Tony's eyes. "You know, in that entire conversation… he did not once ask if I was okay. After _everything…_" Her voice caught, vision blurred. Tony did not hesitate when bringing his hand up to her cheek and wiping the hot tears away with his thumb. Afternoon sunlight reflected in his eyes, and she saw her own sadness and anger mirrored in them.

"It's not fair, Ziva," he commiserated. "He should have loved you." She was grateful that he did not try to say what she'd heard so many times—that Eli loved her, only did not know how to show it. Perhaps that was true, but they both knew that wasn't what she needed to hear when the wound was still so fresh.

"I know I should not be surprised. I should have expected nothing less from him. But…" Her face crumpled. She closed her leaking eyes and leaned her head into his hand. "But it still hurts, Tony. It hurts so badly."

"I know," he cooed, pulling her back into him, her face pressed into the side of his neck. She inhaled deeply, finding a surprising amount of comfort in the warmth of his bare skin.

"I am alone."

The realization hit her like a wave. She thought back to her childhood, to the time when the Davids celebrated Shabbat around a candle-lit table, to the countryside where she, her mother, and her sister would laugh and stargaze, to the orchards where she and her siblings would climb trees and spill orange juice down their chins. She remembered the little girl, not six years old, standing bathed in lights at center stage. She remembered the itchy tutu, the tight bun yanking at her hair, and the excitement that cancelled out all else.

Look at that little girl, her grinning face and graceful limbs, the pride in her eyes. So young, so pure, so without blame in this world. That little girl will be beaten down, trampled upon, stripped of everything she holds most dear in the world. She will be starved, kicked, violated, made lower than the dirt she will sleep on. And she will be abandoned by so many people, but the only one that will really matter is the abandonment of the man who, in almost a divine act of foreshadowing, cannot not be bothered to make it to her performance that night.

The audience claps and the little girl bows, innocence personified in a pink leotard and tutu. Perhaps her father already knows what she'd become. Perhaps that is why he skips her performances—to avoid seeing the glorification of all he will destroy.

Now, though, her family was gone. Five members in total. A mother, a father, a son, and two daughters. Never mind that the son was a bastard child, he was loved all the same. They lived together. Ate together. Played together.

Three of them were dead. First the mother, then the youngest sister, and then the brother at the hands of his only living sibling and at the orders of their father. A massacre, a family tree bathed in blood, blood that stained the hands of the only two living members.

And then the father orders his daughter to her death, and from that moment forward, although his heart may still beat, there is no family left for Ziva David.

She remembered back to when the desert world was reality, when she'd imagined she saw everyone she loved die before her. First Mahmoud, then her mother, then her sister, then her brother. Her father had come in next. He'd looked down on that pile of bones, the destruction he'd caused, and the girl in the chair who he still had a chance to save. But he'd turned his back. Left her there. Completed the cycle of destruction by signing the death warrant of that precious little ballerina he never saw perform.

She wondered if that hallucination was not the universe giving her a preview of what would come to pass.

"I am alone," she repeated, voice strained. Tony's arms tightened around her. He did not try to argue, and she was grateful for that. He understood what she meant by _alone. _Her family was dead. She was the last David. She needed to grieve.

"I am so sorry, Ziva." She took a deep, shuddering breath.

"So am I."

**. . .**

She let him comfort her for what seemed like hours, long after her eyes went dry and shoulders ceased to shake. She stayed on the couch with her head pillowed on his chest, her hot and even breaths warming his skin. Sometimes her eyes would flutter shut, and he would suspect she'd fallen asleep, but then they'd open again and stare straight and unfocused. He knew it was not the lamp on the end table she was seeing.

The significance of those languid, mourning hours did not escape him. This position was not unfamiliar to them—she'd spent every night of the past week finding comfort in his arms. But always,_ always,_ it was beneath the cover of darkness, when his face was shadowed and she was desperate for solace after a heart-rending nightmare. It was only a week ago that she could barely look at him during the day, and yet there they were, their embracing bodies bathed in the afternoon sunlight.

Eventually, she was the one to move. She extricated her sluggish body from his, muttering something about using the bathroom. He knew she was not done grieving, it was far too soon for that, but as she padded into his room he recognized in her stiff limbs the desire to_ do_ something. She was not done grieving for her father, but she was done crying for him.

The idea came to him without delay. The second he laid his eyes on the kitchen, he knew what to do. So when Ziva emerged from the bathroom, a question awaited her.

"What's your favorite comfort food?"

A puzzled expression crossed her face. "Why?"

"I think we should try to make it."

"I cannot use my hands," she reminded him sourly, holding the blue plaster up for him to see. "And what do you know of cooking?"

"Plenty, thanks. I'm Italian."

"That does not mean you know how to cook." There were elements of their old banter in the conversation, and it only encouraged him.

"No, but being the only kid of an Italian woman who _did_ definitely does. I was her little sous chef." His heart leapt when a ghost of a smile played at her lips.

"Matzo ball soup."

"Your favorite comfort food?"

"Yes."

"Think we can make it? I could Google a recipe."

"I know it."

He raised an eyebrow. "By heart?"

"Yes."

"Thought you were having memory issues?"

She looked almost as if she wanted to roll her eyes. "Yes, with the past few years only. I have been making this since I was a little girl." Her eyes clouded, then. "My mother taught me. It was her mother's recipe."

He wondered for a moment if this had been a good idea. The object of this was to cheer her up, not remind her of all she had lost. "Well then you can instruct me and I'll be your hands. Wanna go to the store and pick up the ingredients?"

There was a flash of anxiety on her face. "Can I not just make you a list?"

"Come on, Ziva, it'll be fun. Our first real excursion. You went out with Abby earlier and made it all right."

"This is different."

It had been almost a month, but he still wasn't used to such a nervous Ziva. "How so?" Her gaze hit the floor and he suddenly felt guilty for pushing.

"Nevermind."

"No, tell me what's bothering you."

She swallowed, leaning up against the back of the couch. "I do not like it when they stare. That is all."

"They?"

She threw her weighted hands in the hair, exasperated. "Everyone!"

"Strangers you mean?"

"Yes." Everything in her body language told him that she was ashamed of being so self-conscious. He knew, though, that it was not within her control.

"What do they know about you? About what you've been through? Ignore them. It doesn't mean anything." He fixed her with a look that was the closest he could get to puppy-dog without sacrificing his dignity. "We need to get you back out in the world. Start_ living,_ you know? You can't get better cooped up inside all the time." He remembered how much and how quickly she'd improved when he took her to the park, and knew he was right.

She finally agreed, albeit somewhat hesitantly, to accompany him to the grocery store. He delegated to her the job of pushing the cart and instructing him what to pick up next, hoping that it could provide her some support since he knew she still had trouble walking. She took her job very seriously, focusing all her energy on maneuvering the metal contraption through the aisles. Sometimes he would turn back to place the ingredients in the cart and find her slumped over the handles. Recognizing her exhaustion, he resolved to speed up the shopping process.

He noticed that she always seemed to look away whenever other shoppers passed, suddenly very fascinated with the spice shelf or the linoleum tiling. When they came to the check out, she lingered behind him and read the title of every tabloid twice before looking up at the cashier, who in the end just gave her a friendly smile as she handed Tony back his credit card. Ziva blinked, and once again he thought he saw her try to smile. She was almost timid, and the contrast to his once confident and outgoing partner was stark. She stared quietly out the window the whole ride home, taking in the life milling around her.

Back at his apartment, she took a seat at the island stool and began instructing him on how to begin the soup. First, the entire chicken they'd bought had to be put into a large pot with the various vegetables and spices to make the broth. It was a very involved process, and Ziva's instructions were precise. It was not until almost four hours later, after a lot of friendly bickering and frustration and two hours of idle time while the dough chilled, that the two exhausted people finally sat down for their meal.

He did not miss the look of nostalgic delight on Ziva's face as she took the first bite. It made all those hours of cooking worth it, because although he could plainly see how much she missed her childhood and homeland, he also saw the way the tension drained from her shoulders and the muscles in her face relaxed. The comfort food had served its purpose, and the best part was the recipe had made enough to last numerous meals. He had a feeling they'd found a new secret weapon in the battle against her past.

"This is delicious," he moaned, the hot broth coating his tongue in rich flavor. It warmed his entire body.

"It is just as I remember it."

And when he looked up, he saw she was smiling.


	8. Chapter 8

**. . .**

**Part VIII**

**. . .**

The desert claimed her swiftly that night, and Tony was there to greet her. Life shuddered into the broken body on the floor and there she was, having been thrown headlong back into this world of agony. There was no greeting, no first blow, only the blood-red pulsation of pain that enveloped her. It had no defined beginning or end, no borders. It was seamless, and thoroughly shocking.

She knew it was a dream because Tony had begun talking about her father. He hovered over her and threw punches in the form of words.

"He knows where you are," Tony said. "He's known this whole time."

She wanted to scream out _that is not true,_ but her voice got tangled in her dry throat. The words chafed and burned.

"You don't seriously think it's an accident you were sent here, do you? He was all too eager to get rid of you." He ran the toe of his polished shoe down her bruised jaw, slowly, lovingly. "You were a burden, Ziva."

_That is not true!_ But she couldn't say it. Couldn't get the words free. She did not even know if she believed them.

"If he could see you now…" He knelt beside her, the dirt smudging his black suit pants. "Well, not that there's really much left of you." His words were sharp and matter-of-fact, and oh, how precise. It did not matter that she knew it was a dream. It still felt real. The pain was real. The sharp sting as his merciless taunts hit home was real.

He was right, she knew. She was little more than bones, split skin, and spilt blood.

"You know, it's funny, I still remember when we first met." Above her, his green eyes went cloudy, Cupid's bow mouth quirked upwards in remembrance. "You had that scarf tied around your head and asked if I was having phone sex. You were so…_ bold,_ then. Flirtatious. Confident. Beautiful." He chuckled lowly, running a soft finger down the length of her nose. "Funny how things change."

She wanted to lash out, to snatch his hand away from her face and dig into the pressure point until he cried out in pain. She wanted to snap his fingers as he'd snapped hers. But she remembered then the bleeding stumps where her fingers should have been, the pain of that having gotten mixed in with all the rest, and resigned herself to tolerating his disgustingly gentle touch.

"And oh God, you were a great lover, too. Remember that, Ziva? Man, that was a great summer. You were so good in bed. An animal. You really liked it rough." His nose crinkled in disgust. "Now you just lay there like some wounded puppy. It wasn't even worth it."

Memories of his hot, whiskey breath and the crushing feeling of his body atop hers mixed in with flashes of sweaty, cream-colored sheets and rosy, laughing cheeks. She wanted to cry. She wanted to die.

_It's not real it's not real it's not real._

"I miss how it used to be. Back then. It was easy. Now, though…" His finger moved over her jaw, down her neck, across her collarbone. It traveled through the hollow between her breasts and stopped just above her belly button. "I mean you're barely even responsive. You don't fight. You just cry and take it." She watched as his sea-foam eyes took in her pitiful body from head to toe before finally returning to hers. His knuckle ground into her bruised and concave stomach, and she grit her aching teeth. "You're worthless."

As if to punctuate his words, his free hand collided with the back of her head. In a sudden burst of violence, he grabbed a fist full of hair and yanked her off the ground, torso suspended upright by the dull strands. With his other hand, he pulled his knife from its sheath. It glistened in the sunlight and she was certain he meant to impale her with it. She screwed her eyes shut and let her body go limp.

_Go for the heart._

But he did not, because she had apparently not been humiliated enough in this life. He went for the hair he had pulled taught, slicing off her bitter brown locks in a forceful move that tore a gargled gasp of surprise from her parched throat. She fell forward, folding like a rag doll and splitting open welts on her back. He tossed the mop of dead curls onto her lap and continued to cut, slice, and tear, not stopping until her head was shorn to her bleeding scalp.

She was completely naked now, utter and totally exposed. Even in the oven of a cell she was cold, shivering as the air hit her bare head. The shivers turned into sobs that wracked her crumpled, stripped form. She could feel his eyes on her, pitying, disgusted, amused. She was a spectacle, an animal, now no longer a human being but a feature of the cell. Look in through the window and see the dirt-covered floor, the filthy window, the rotting table, the crumpled corpse.

There was no hair to hold her by now, so instead he wrenched her back up by her neck. His fingers dug into her throat and he worked her over with penetrating, cold eyes, ones that she knew in her heart did not belong on that face, in that body, to that man.

"There's not much reason for me to keep you around," he mused, "is there?"

She still could not get words out but she wanted to answer, so instead she twisted her head oh-so-minutely to the side and back. _No._

The knife was in his hand. Her swirling gaze alternated between his face and the blade. She stared him down while he made his decision, and ultimately her only warning was the glint of light off of the metal before the world flashed white and hot. His expression did not change when he stabbed her. There was nothing in his eyes that signaled he'd just buried his knife up to the hilt in a woman's shoulder.

Her shoulder. _Her shoulder._ She wanted to cry again, but there was no moisture left for tears. She screamed instead. He twisted the blade so cruelly in the wound and the sound escalated, climbing octaves. She was on fire. The sound of her agony bounced off the walls, reverberating in the small concrete cell that had already absorbed so much of her blood.

"I think I'll wait," he decided, yanking the knife from her body. Blood poured from the wound then, but he grabbed a towel from the table to stop the flow—to halt the seeping of life from her body. She was in too much pain to do anything about it.

The agony had loosened her tongue and the blood that coated her throat had loosened her tangled words.

"Finish it," she begged, her voice still no more than a broken whimper.

But there were arms around her then, familiar arms, and she could feel the numbing chill of the other world calling to her. It used her name. Ziva. _Ziva._

"Ziva!"

She looked up and saw the same man standing above her. Same ruffled hair, same square jaw, same defined features. But different eyes—oh, how different the eyes were. Wide and searching and _terrified._

She tasted her last words on her lips, her desperate and shameful plea, and she knew that she'd let them slip in not one but two worlds, in front of not one but two versions of this man. Both had denied her request, but this Tony went so much further. Soon she found herself cradled against him, head nestled just below his collarbone, a steady hand moving up and down between her shoulder blades.

It was tender. Familiar. Real.

"Ziva…" She knew from his voice that this was about what he'd just heard.

"You do not need to worry," she whispered, not trusting her voice.

"Easier said than done."

She sighed, focusing on the comforting warmth of his body soft against hers. Her hair tickled her neck. "I am fine," she assured him. She could not see his face, but she knew he did not buy it.

The blinding pain of only moments ago was now only a remembered ache, but she could recall the hopelessness perfectly. She had always thought of it as a weight, bearing down on and eventually crushing its victim, but this particular brand was as sharp as the knife that had sliced through her shoulder. It came with the realization that there was no way out, no light, no way to ever escape the agony and humiliation. Hopelessness would stab through her then, piercing her with the knowledge that _this was her life now._ Even in the real world, she could vividly remember what it felt like.

Tony held on to her tightly, fearfully, as if he was afraid she would slip through his fingers. She wondered with no slight amount of fear how much longer he would put up with this. This could not keep happening. She could not heal with one foot planted so firmly in the past, and she could not expect him to comfort her like this for every day for the rest of her life. Nor could she heal when she spent every night locked in the very place she was trying to forget. As long as every night continued to bring worse and worse trauma, she knew it could not continue. She could not allow it to get any worse than it was now. It simply was not sustainable.

She buried herself in him and resolved to stop this, for both of their sakes.

**. . .**

For lunch the next day there was leftover soup, but for dinner he ordered Chinese takeout. His intent in doing this did not go over her head, especially when he urged her to the couch and slipped _The Sound of Music_ into the DVD player. The smell of the food, the sound of the movie, the feel of his body beside her combined on his couch perfectly to trigger memories of countless nights they'd done just this. She could not remember just when they had occurred—before Jeanne? after Jenny?—but she remembered, at least, that they had.

"We used to do this a lot," she stated. He looked over at her, startled, and put the chopsticks down to reach for the remote. The movie paused.

"You remember that?"

"I remember _something._ Like I said, it is pieces and bits."

"Bits and pieces. But you remember our movie nights?" She could see the smile threatening the corners of his mouth.

"Yes," she admitted. "But not in much detail."

"Still, that's…" he exhaled heavily, "that's great, Ziva."

"It seems I remember things when I am prompted to, yes? But I cannot recall them out of the blue."

"Well I guess that just means we've gotta prompt you more, huh?"

"I suppose it does," she conceded. He was silent for a moment and she thought he would start the movie again, but instead it remained frozen and he shifted himself on the couch so he was facing her.

"Maybe we should go through it all." There was careful hope shining in his eyes as he suggested it. She raised her eyebrows.

"_All_ of it? Now?"

"Sure, why not? We've got all night."

"It… it is a lot, is it not? We could spend weeks."

"So we'll be concise. Summarize and whatever. Please?"

The air hummed with his optimism, and the little flame of hope in his eyes undermined her ability to say no. It jumped over the few feet of space between them and caught in her chest. From there it spread its expectant warmth over her body, down her limbs, into her toes and casted, broken fingers. For a moment she could see the situation as he did—he could help her remember, once and for all. His prompting words could reach in and salvage the memories she'd hidden away, just as the takeout food and movie-musical had only moments ago. And maybe, just maybe, if she remembered how they got here, she would know how they could get out.

Apprehension crept up on her from behind, its chilled fingertips cooling the spreading warmth. It had been months since she locked those memories away deep within her. Her life had never been happy, and it was all too easy to fear what she would find.

"Don't you want to remember?" The concern had thickened his voice.

"Of course I do," she promised. "But nothing is without its consequences, yes?"

He blinked, his brow stitching together. "What do you mean?" She wet her lips, eyes darting to the side for a moment. It was so hard to hold his gaze.

"Perhaps I am not ready to remember."

He bristled. "What exactly are you afraid is gonna happen?"

Her thumbs tumbled over one another at her lap. She studied them as the words passed through her lips. "I do not want to complicate things." She heard his heavy exhale and looked up, worried he was growing impatient. She would be, if she were him.

"We're back to complications, huh?" It was obvious what he was thinking of. She'd sent him away for days before in the name of things being too complicated.

"I simply do not want to make things messier. There… is already a lot." The space between them was piled high with debris from the summer apart and the events that had led up to it. Sorting through it was an arduous and overwhelming task, and even now she had trouble identifying where to begin. She could not imagine throwing three more years' worth of problems on top of it.

"I don't think it will make it messier," he shrugged. "I mean, how can you be expected to make sense of all the junk from the past few months if you don't know how any of it happened? You need _context,_ Ziva."

She knew he was right. He was always right, it seemed. The past summer could not exist in a vacuum, and to treat it as such would be a gross misjudgment on her part. She could not have a future if she did not understand her past.

Currently, she looked back on the past three years and found very little. She remembered orange walls, bright skylights, a black windbreaker. She could picture settings and people and sometimes events, but it was like a photograph, a snapshot or someone else's life. She could imagine the world, but she could not remember what it felt like to be a part of it. It was as if her past was a darkened sea, floating with jumbled bits of memories and wisps of emotion.

"I cannot guarantee this will work, Tony. Please… do not get your hopes up?"

"It's worth a shot," he reasoned. "If it doesn't work, we can try something else later."

"So…" she cleared her throat, and looked to him to guide them. "Where do we begin?"

"At the beginning, I guess. What's the earliest thing you can remember?"

Immediately, her mind flew to a dank basement, cold metal in her hands, a deafening gunshot. A hushed lullaby forced from a choked throat, sadness and disbelief permeating. Fast forward, and she remembered her burnt cheeks, turned red from standing for hours in the baking sun that beat upon the freshly dug grave of the brother she'd killed. His assassin had been the only one who bothered to come to his funeral.

"Ari." She did not know if Tony had truly known their relationship, but judging by the sympathy in his face, she'd found the time to tell him sometime in the following years. "I came to NCIS right after."

"Yeah. Do you remember why?"

She huffed. "I needed to get away. From Mossad, my father… I did not know who to trust anymore." It seemed that was a common conflict in her life.

"That must've taken a lot of guts," he prompted. She shrugged.

"Jenny was on my side. She saw that I needed space. She wanted to protect me, I think."

"So she created the liaison position?"

"Yes. She saw… more, in me. She told me once that she wanted me to understand that there was more to life than Mossad, than duty."

"I'm glad she did."

"Yes," Ziva agreed readily, "so am I." Although she could not remember exactly what had happened during her time as the liaison, just by looking around her she could see that great things had come from it. No one in Mossad, not even her own father, would look after and care for her like her friends here did.

Suddenly, she could remember the desert, but it was not the one of the past summer. In this desert, a green-painted abandoned diner rose on the barren horizon. Gunshots echoed and blood pooled on the floor under a shock of red hair.

"Jenny is dead, isn't she?"

Tony's lips pressed together. "Yeah, Ziva, she is. I'm sorry." The clouded look in his eyes told her he was back in that diner, as well. The scene shifted in her mind and suddenly there was the cool, dark air of the morgue, his downcast face illuminated by a single lamp, and the half-empty bottle of scotch he used to swallow his guilt. Their guilt. _She died alone._

"It is what it is," she reasoned. The phrase felt so familiar on her lips. "I do not think I ever truly forgot that she was gone. I am not shocked. But still… it is sad. She was a good friend to me."

"I never really knew her too well. I met her the same day I met you." A hint of a smile tugged on his mouth. His taunts from her nightmare echoed in her ears, the way he had recalled their first meeting, how he'd described her. _Flirtatious. Confident. Beautiful._ She shuddered.

"I do not remember much after that. Once I join the team, it all becomes very fuzzy."

"Do you remember our undercover op?"

"I…" She took in the conspiratorial grin on his face, the knowing glint in his eyes, and it all seemed so _familiar_ but she could not place it. "Remind me."

"You and I, married assassins, quite literally undercover." She could almost hear the double entendre, and it wasn't long before she could picture the dim-lit hotel room, swanky music, the cool silk of the dress sliding down her body, the lingering taste of grapes on her lips that was quickly replaced with his mouth. _That is not your knee._

"Oh. Yes. I remember." She was not expecting such sudden, intimate images of the man before her. It had been an act, a ruse, and neither had fully shed their clothes, but still she remembered his body pressed against hers and she bristled.

"Then we got locked in that shipping container. Man, we had a fun year." The smell of burning paper. The ground moving beneath them. A gunshot fires and ricochets off of ribbed metal walls._ I am protecting you, Tony._ "Well, _you_ had a great year. I got framed for murder."

She did not remember that, but learned to let it go. Baby steps.

"Then Gibbs got blown up and got freaking amnesia because apparently our lives are a soap opera," he joked. "You were the one who helped him remember." And oh, the irony of that. Now it was she who had trouble remembering the past, and she had a new appreciation for what her boss must have gone through. It was not hard to remember the dark room, her wrenching sobs, the tears running down her cheek and the strong hands that held her and cradled her head like a baby.

"He left anyway."

Tony nodded. "Yeah. He made me the new team leader that summer." There was a peculiar expression on his face. He studied her, hesitant, as if he was trying to gauge her reaction. "Do you remember anything about that?"

Perhaps it was because of last night's dream, but that was all the prompting it took for the memory to come flying back. It was tainted, though, by the cruel words the man of the desert had thrown at her. She could hear his disgusting, demeaning taunts. Along with this came, inevitably, the memory of crushing weight and hot breath and excruciating pain. But looking across at the real Tony and his bright, mossy eyes reminded her that such thoughts had no place here. This was about them, and what_ really_ happened that summer, the one she could now finally understand beyond distant flashes.

"I remember."

He seemed just as caught up in the memories as she was, even if for him the novelty had long worn off. "Remember that first night? After Gibbs left? It was storming pretty badly and you showed up at my apartment soaked, saying something about being worried about me. Made some joke about the sky crying because Gibbs had run off to Mexico." His distant eyes smiled fondly. "You came in and totally took over my sofa. Guess that hasn't changed," he teased, looking around at their current position. "I think we watched Bond and ordered takeout from that one Thai restaurant across town you love… er, loved."

The details painted a familiar picture in her mind, and she almost felt as if they could have been there, in 2006, living out the first night together of many to come. Once again, she remembered his lips on hers, but the kiss was slower than their undercover mission, deeper, authentic. It tasted of red wine and rainwater.

"Gibbs left and took his rules with him, yes?" she recalled. "Which one was it, again?"

"Twelve."

"We, uh… we broke rule twelve a lot that summer, yes?"

A bit of color flooded his cheeks. He coughed. "Yeah, we did."

She remembered how they'd made it a weekly occurrence, starting with him buzzing the intercom and her padding downstairs in bare feet, shorts, and a tank top to answer the door. Some evenings they would sit down to a meal, some evenings they would lounge on the couch and sip wine and talk, and some evenings they would not make it through the door before her lips and his collided in a blind passion that did not always make it to the bedroom. Some days she needed it rough and would allow him to fuck her against the wall, the door, the dining table. But still others she would crave a soft touch, and he would make love to her attentively beneath her silky sheets. It was never complicated. It was a give and take, push and pull relationship, neither expecting more than the other. It was easy. Fun. Wild.

So different from now.

"Do you ever miss how things were? Do you ever wish you could go back to that summer?" Now that she remembered what it had been like, how easy things had been, she felt the craving for those days building in her chest.

"All the time," he admitted. "But it couldn't have gone on forever."

"Who broke it off?" She could not fathom why it would have been her.

"I did," he admitted. "Jenny gave the me Benoit assignment, and I just… couldn't, anymore. We were a bit tense for a while."

"Benoit?"

"Jeanne," he clarified, and with the name came the remembrance of months of worry and jealousy. Perhaps she'd done the unthinkable and gotten emotionally attached during that summer. It should have been a no strings affair, but Ziva was beginning to wonder if such a thing even existed. She'd had regular sex with many of her partners in Mossad with no fallout. That summer with Tony had been different, though, and not just because he had technically been her superior.

"I see."

"And then you got in pretty deep trouble with a lot of different people and called Gibbs back to help. I think it was some Iranian thing."

"Oh, yes. Eschel." The memories were flooding back now. First there was the basement, the same one in which she'd shot her brother dead. She'd held a phone to her ear and wiped forbidden tears from her cheeks as she begged for his help. _I was wondering, maybe…Save me?_

And then she remembered the embassy, the office of Michael Bashan, and the pictures he'd handed to her as he opened a line of questioning she'd never expected but sent shards of ice into her heart. She'd feared her father would sense her deeper attachment to the Americans and recall her. She had not wanted to leave, not when she had finally made a place for herself.

"Then Gibbs came back and grew that stupid mustache."

She almost laughed out loud at the sudden shift in mood. Almost. It was hard to laugh. She was not sure she remembered how.

"You were with Jeanne that whole year, yes?"

"Yeah. And you… you met Roy."

Him, she remembered. The orange beanie in the box McGee brought had jogged her memory on that subject a few days earlier. "I lost Roy."

Tony cocked his head to the side. "He meant a lot to you."

"Yes," she agreed. "I do not remember why."

"I don't think you ever knew, to be honest. It was just… one of those things. A connection, maybe."

"Something like that." At that point, she had lost too many people to have ever allowed herself to hope she would be able to hold on to Roy. Still, his memory was sharp with the idea of what could have been, in another world.

"Then I got blown up that spring. Well, my car got blown up. Something always seems to go wrong in May."

_That_ memory hit her like a ton of bricks straight in her gut. It was a familiar horror, walking slowly onto a charred crime scene, knowing that she would find the incinerated remains of someone who meant so much to her. She'd been the one to find his badge. She remembered brushing the ashes off with her thumb, trying to hold her lunch down as she realized the black soot on her hands could very well have been what was left of his body. She did not allow herself hope in the days that followed. Hope was a luxury she could not afford. It had no place. Onlookers had condemned her as emotionless due to her seeming non-reaction, but those closest to her knew the truth. They knew how much she was hurting.

Ziva looked up at the man before her with widened eyes. She was finally beginning to understand just who he had been to her.

"I thought you were dead."

A funny look that she did not understand crossed his face. "Yeah, I know what that's like." She figured he was referring to when Eschel's safe-house had blown up, presumably with her and Gibbs inside. "It all ended up okay, though. The whole Frog thing got wrapped up eventually. I mean I got accused of killing him, but it worked out."

"You broke Jeanne's heart." For some reason, that woman's face as Tony told her he never loved her stood out in her mind above all the rest. His expression soured.

"Yeah, thanks for that. I did it so she'd move on. It had gone on long enough, and we couldn't…"

She shook her head, stopping him. "I understand. You do not have to justify it anymore."

He nodded, clearly wanting to move on. "What else happened that year? Didn't you almost get killed on that undercover assignment?"

"I have been almost killed many times, Tony."

"Yeah, but it hit you really hard one time. Some serial killer, I think you posed as his girlfriend. He made you, tried to kill you, but you came out on top. Figuratively."

Oh. Yes. That. In her mind, the gunshots reverberated off the empty warehouse walls and she felt the dead weight of her kill on top of her. He was right, she hadn't dealt with it well. She'd taken home a man she barely knew, and one potentially involved in the investigation at that, and lost herself in him. It had been a while since her last one night stand. She seemed to have grown out of them, for Michael Locke did not bring her the solace she expected. She'd retreated into her mind, second-guessing herself at every turn.

_I was just going to tousle your hair. Sometimes it makes you smile._

"Jenny died that Spring," Tony continued. "Vance separated us. You remember that now, right?"

She nodded. Her emotions of shock and sadness came back to her as she remembered the new Director's words. _You're going home._

And though Israel was her homeland, it had not felt like home.

"I can't really tell you anything about that summer. All I know is you got blown up in Morrocco and Rivkin was there." The mention of Michael made her stomach twist. She tried to force away the image of his white body, arms crossed over his chest, swallowed in a black zippered bag. Not yet. They would get there.

"I was glad to come back."

"Believe me, so was I."

_I miss you all. Even… even Tony._

She had forgotten how much it had hurt to be separated from him, then. She'd wanted to see his smile, feel his presence, hear his voice even if it meant endless movie references. He had been her partner, but mere partners did not miss each other like she'd missed him. A full picture of their relationship had finally begun to take shape in her brain. It was familiar and aching.

_You could have called._

"The next year, _last_ year… I'm not going to lie, Ziva. It was pretty tough for us."

She could picture the bullpen, with its orange walls and blinding skylights, but now, finally, there was emotion to go along with it. It was no longer a photograph but a living, breathing memory, vibrant enough that she could almost feel how thick the tension had been between them as that year progressed.

She recalled the sound of sirens and his body pressed firmly against hers in a dark closet. She remembered hearing a gunshot, seeing him fall, fighting like hell. Later, a metal box with a bluish glow. Hair secured in a fierce ponytail, arms folded over chests. _I'm tired of pretending._

_So am I._

At the center of the conflict had been Rivkin and the fact that no one, even Ziva, truly knew where her loyalties had lain. Their partnership had hardened, been made brittle, and cracked right through the center. She remembered how badly that had hurt, how betrayed she had felt. And then she'd come home to her boyfriend dead and her partner or_ whoever_ Tony was to her with the smoking gun in his hand. He was wide-eyed and reeling, and it was not the face of a man who had just killed in cold blood. But it hurt all the same.

From that point forward, she was only ever headed to Somalia.

"What happened with Michael was not your fault," she confessed. "I know that you meant only to protect me." It had been so easy, when she was in the middle of it all, to be furious with him. In reality, her anger would have been better served directed to those who deserved it most, but Rivkin was dead and her father was her _father_. Instead, the man before her had borne the brunt of her rage. She could almost feel how hot the summer Israeli sun had been as it pounded down on the rooftop, their shattered partnership, and fed her anger. _You killed him._

_If I hadn't, you'd be having this conversation with him. But maybe that's the way you'd prefer it._

_Perhaps I would!_

She averted her gaze, suddenly so ashamed. "You did not deserve the things I said." Before, it had been easy to write off her sins from that time as work of the other woman, the woman she had been. But now, as she looked back, she realized that she _was_ that other woman. There was no separating them, not even months of dehumanizing torture. Their sins were one and the same. Looking back on the past three years at once, she could fully realize just how wrong she had been. "I am so sorry, Tony."

"You don't need to apologize," he promised. "It's water under the bridge at this point."

"Still, it is long overdue. You deserve to hear it. After everything…" She shook her head. "Thank you. For giving me another chance."

"I only ever blamed Eli," he assured her. "He put you in a terrible position."

Her gut twisted at this unexpected sympathy. She felt that rare bit of righteous indignation flare in her chest. She so suddenly wanted to cry. "He did," she accepted. "I… I could not disobey him. He was my father."

"I knew that. Gibbs knew that. We _understood,_ Ziva."

"It was more than I deserved. And even then, you still had faith that I'd return." She remembered how they'd saved all her belongings, packaged them neatly in a box for when she came back to them.

"This is your home, Ziva," he stated softly, eyes gentle, "and we knew you'd come home eventually." She looked away, then, because she knew her next confession would not be easy.

"I do not know if I will return to NCIS." She held her breath as she watched the words register. In the end, he surprised her.

"I wasn't sure you would. You've gotta do what you think is best for you." Confusion furrowed her brow.

"But we will no longer be partners."

His face contorted in a funny look that she couldn't quite define. "We've always been a lot more than just partners, Ziva."

"Yes," she admitted, not about to deny it, "there were… other things, over the years. But still, we were primarily partners." She had thought he would be more worried, because surely he understood this meant things would never return to normal for them? She would never again be that other woman. That much, at least, he'd known. But this new admission threw their future completely into the air, and her stomach was twisting at the prospect of how he could react.

"In case you haven't noticed, it's been a long time since we've been partners. It hasn't changed anything." She saw a glint of suspicion in his eyes. "You don't think I'm gonna bail, do you?"

Her throat was thick with emotions she could not articulate. It had been an underlying worry for the past week or so, resting beneath the surface and every now and then causing her stomach to knot. If he left, she did not know what she would do. She'd only sent him away for four days last time, but in those four days without him she'd retreated completely into her own mind, into the horrid memories. If he left, she would likely die. Perhaps not in body, but surely in spirit.

He caught the way she looked down, the flicker of self-conscious shame in her eyes. His widened in turn.

"I thought you'd know by now that I'm not going anywhere. Why would I?"

She swallowed and forced the words up her throat. "I have not been the kindest to you."

His expression was stern. "Ziva, you've been through hell, and then some. No one can blame you. You're trying, and you're doing _well._"

"They destroyed me, Tony. And yes, things are getting better, but it might be a very long time before I am even _close_ to the woman you remember!" As she predicted, there _had_ been consequences to remembering her past. She knew what normal was, now. Before, she had been content to just keep plugging away, taking it day after day, celebrating small things such as allowing him to come near her in the daytime. But now to celebrate such things seemed silly, when she could see how far they still had to go. "Our relationship… It will never be like it once was. And no matter how noble your intentions, it is not going to be easy to piece me back together."

He looked shocked and mildly offended. "I knew what I was signing up for, Ziva. I'm in this for the long haul." His eyes were liquid as they looked down to her hands, and she knew yet again that he wanted to take them in his. Instead he settled on placing a soft hand on the side of her shoulder. "Ziva, listen. Our… relationship, whatever it is, doesn't have to be like it was before. Nothing's gonna be like it was before, honestly. But that doesn't mean it can't be just as good—great, even. Everything will work out, you'll see."

His hand was warm and soothing and she wanted to be in his arms again, but she retrained herself. "Thank you, Tony. I… I needed this." He looked so hopeful. It made her heart twinge.

"It helped?"

"Yes. I think I understand better now."

"Understand what?"

It was a lot of things—her past, his outlook, how any of this came to happen—but instead she settled on just one.

"Us."

**. . .**

Hours later, the credits rolled in front of her drooping eyes. She'd spent the majority of the movie deep in distant thought. The songs and scenes were so familiar that it was easy to tune them out and instead let her brain focus on processing all that their conversation had revealed.

He had unpaused the movie not long after their talk, and she sensed that she was not the only one who needed some time to think. They'd turned back to the television, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the cushions, and pretended to watch story playing out before them.

She was exhausted by the time the movie ended, fighting to keep her head from falling to rest on his shoulder. It was not overly late and they had planned on watching another movie, but he took one look at her and resolve formed in his eyes.

"You need sleep."

"I am fine. It's not late."

"Ziva, you can barely keep your eyes open." She opened her mouth to protest, if only to maintain her dignity, but a yawn built in her throat and betrayed her. He smirked, pushing himself up off the couch cushion. "Let's go," he coached, and she huffed in response.

"Fine." She tried to stand up, but the cushion was not firm and with her casted hands it was difficult to find enough leverage. He leaned down and placed one hand on her elbow and the other between her shoulder blades, helping her up. Though she accepted the aid, she did not meet his eyes.

"Are you good? Do you need help with anything? The bandages?"

"Abby is coming to change them tomorrow," she informed him as she entered the bedroom. He stayed at the threshold, hands in his pockets.

"You know, if you ever need me to—" he began to offer, but she did not let him finish.

"I know," she assured him. Of course she knew. She was not at all surprised that he was willing to perform such a task. His gaze fell down to the floor, and she could easily divine the reason behind his willingness—he wanted to see with his own eyes the damage she'd thought he had caused. He was growing ever bolder with her, for him to have even suggested that she bare her wounds to him. She only feared that this audacity had been born of growing impatience.

Tony lingered in the doorway with his hand on the light switch as she climbed into his bed. "You can turn it off," she told him, but there was hesitation in his fingers and concern in his eyes. He did not want to leave her alone, not when he knew it made her a sitting duck for the desert to claim her. To shut off the lights and leave her in this room was no different than locking her in that Somali cell, and she could see how heavily this weighed on him.

Eventually, albeit reluctantly, he flicked the switch and swathed the room in black. "Goodnight, Ziva." They both knew it would be mere hours before he returned, called back by the desperate screams torn from her throat because he could not protect her. He would then wrap her in his arms just as he always did, body leaden with the futility of it all, and attempt to counteract the damage done by that desert version of himself. But for now he left her alone with the demons, because she had given him no other choice.

Despite being mentally and physically exhausted, it took her a long time to fall asleep. She could not relax, not when she knew that to do so meant returning to the desert and the untold horrors that awaited her. She could not bear to think of what she would suffer that night, when each dream had been getting progressively worse and last night's had left her begging for death. She shivered despite the layers of blankets, remembering the stabbing pain of hopelessness, and forced her eyes wide open.

But she could not hold out forever. Eventually her eyelids began to droop, her body relaxing into the mattress, and the dark bedroom began to dissipate. In its place was blinding light, blinding pain and the stench of rot. The ground was sticky and wet with the blood that had seeped out from the wound on her shoulder. Her pale, naked body lay spread limply on the dirty concrete and she opened here eyes to see him looming over her once again, knife in hand. She was like an animal extended on the butcher's table, though she had not been given the mercy of being slaughtered before he began his work of plucking, shearing, and carving up her dwindling body.

"There she is," he greeted with a crooked smile. He turned the blade over and over again in his hands. "Miss me?"

She tried to hold back the shudder that ran down her spine. She failed, and he noticed.

"I guess that's a no. I'm offended, Ziva." He squatted beside her and dragged the knife lazily over her sternum. It came to rest at the clotted, jagged wound on her right shoulder. He flicked it with the tip of her blade and she sucked in a pained breath through gritted teeth. "And here I thought we were having such a good time."

His voice made her skin crawl. It had the same timbre and cadence as the man who had been her partner, the man who made her matzo ball soup and rocked her to sleep every night. It came from the same shaped mouth, the same pale lips. But still, the voice was not Tony's.

She rolled her head away from him, not wanting to look at his face anymore. He'd stolen that face, that body, from the man who least deserved it, and she would not give this thief the validation he craved.

"Zee_-vah_," he taunted in a singsong voice, stretching the syllables of her name and twisting them around his disgusting tongue. "C'mon, stop ignoring me." The tip of the knife traced up the side of her neck, behind and around her ear, and came to rest at a point dangerously close to the corner of her eye. "Hey, look at me," he commanded. She did not dare to move, not even to breathe. A growl rumbled low in his chest and he grabbed her chin with his free hand, fingers digging into the hollows beneath her cheekbones as he wrenched her head around to face him.

She whimpered, a pathetic, inhuman sound. The knife hovered just above the bridge of her nose. Fear coursed like fire through her veins.

"You don't want to look at me? Alright, fine. I can make it so you never look at anything ever again. How do you feel about that, hmm, Ziva?" The knife slid to the right and she snapped her eyes shut instinctively. Oh so tenderly, he rested the tip of the blade atop her closed lid. Bile built in her throat and she suddenly couldn't breathe. She tried desperately to hold still, but she could not fully calm the terrified shivers or ragged breaths. "How do you think that'd feel? My knife sliding into your eyes, popping them one at a time like little sacs of jelly?"

She was shaking uncontrollably now, despairing sobs building in her chest. She reached out blindly with her weak, boney right arm and wrapped her three remaining fingers, broken though they were, around the wrist of the hand that secured her chin.

"_Please,_" she begged, voice thick and no more than a wavering whisper, "please do not do this." Tears welled and seeped out from under the lids of the very eyes he was threatening to gouge from her skull. They slid down past her temple, down the side of her bare head, and dripped one by one onto the bloodstained concrete.

There was a long, pensive silence, and eventually she felt the sharp metal blade pull off of her eyelid. The hand that held her chin slackened slightly, and she allowed her feeble arm to fall back to the ground. Her body deflated and she sucked in gasping breaths, trying to regain her composure. She opened her tear-filled eyes tentatively, fearfully.

"Well, you're lucky you've got pretty eyes. Otherwise they'd be bleeding holes right now."

Relief seized her and only increased her sobbing tremors. She angled her head to the ceiling and blinked furiously, trying not to weep.

"You know, maybe it really is time we ended this. I've had my fun. I did what I came to do. The unbreakable Ziva David is broken_._ There's really nothing left for me to do except kill you."

Tears continued to leak from her eyes. She had nothing to say to him. She prayed he would make it quick.

He sat back on his haunches, thinking. "How should I do it, do you think?" He pulled a handgun from the holster at his waist. "Gunshot, maybe. But where?"

The barrel of the gun grew bigger, bigger, until she felt the cold metal dig firmly into her forehead. _Yes. There. Please._

But then, to her horror, he pulled back. "Nope, too easy."

She was weeping, then. Had she not suffered enough?

"They say it hurts like hell to get shot in the kneecaps," he mused, and sure enough she felt the cold pressure on that very spot of her right leg. She closed her eyes once again, closed them against this world where this beast of a man was designing her death so sadistically. Her knees shook under the weapon and she retched dryly, entire body convulsing.

And then, eventually, the gun pulled away once again.

"You know, though," he mused, "I don't think Saleem's men have had their fun yet. They've been so hospitable to us. I think they deserve something in return, don't you?"

No. No no no. A sob tore through her deteriorated body. She wanted to disappear, to turn to dust or ash or sand or_ something_ that could ride a desert wind far, far away from here. She did not want to be a human, or a woman, or alive. Not here. Not now.

"Maybe I'll let them deal with you. Chain you up in their barracks. What are there, thirty men? They're so hard up they'd probably go for anything, even you."

She prayed he was wrong. She prayed that they would take one look at her shorn scalp, her mottled, pallid skin, her skeletal form, and deem her too disgusting to be raped. Perhaps they'd decide to simply kill her instead, so they wouldn't have to look at her. Perhaps her repugnance would be her salvation.

"I think I like this idea. What'd'ya say, Ziva? Wanna go now?"

The blood still in her body pumped furiously through her veins. She wanted to fight back. She did not want to die like this, submitting to thirty disgusting men as her final act. She wanted him to shoot her or stab her or break her neck, anything. She did not want _this_ to be her death.

Who knew how long it would take for them to tire of her? Who knew how many times she would be forced to endure such a vile act? She had not a scrap of dignity left, but still she knew they could find more to take from her. They would tear her to shreds, looking for something else of hers to assassinate, searching out any bit of humanity that she had managed to hide from Tony. They would turn her inside out and shake her until something fell out, not stopping until she had been emptied of even the most shattered pieces of her soul, drained of every depleted drop of her spirit.

She could not allow that to happen.

He was reaching toward her neck, now, wrapping his savage fingers around her throat. He stood up, pulling her strained torso up with him as if she weighed no more than a small child, and began to drag her toward the door. Her gasp of pain as her open wounds grated on the sandpaper turned into a choked gargle. She left a snail-like trail of dirty red in her wake.

She tried furiously to pull in air, needing it to fuel her feeble struggles. His grip only got tighter as she thrashed and her lungs began to burn. Black encroached from the sides of her vision as he threw open the door, which she finally saw led down a long, windowless corridor. Coming from it she heard the faint sound of collective, bellowing male laughter, raucous and menacing. Her skin crawled and stomach flipped.

"Oh, so now you fight?" he mocked, and she wished she never had to hear that voice again. It was a bastardization of the voice of a man she might have loved, years ago, when all that had existed was lazy summer nights and an indefinable bond. Tony DiNozzo's voice, the one that had so often quoted movies and teased her for her idioms, had been injected with an undercurrent of cruelty and used to taunt her, jeer at her, deliver a barbaric death sentence.

Her broken, bleeding hands game up to grapple with the hand crushing her windpipe, and he looked down with a somewhat curious and annoyed expression. As he stared at her, she felt fury churning in her empty stomach. The eyes that bored into hers were that of a demon. It was not like his voice, where she could identify Tony's within it. No, his eyes, green though they were, were unrecognizable. She realized then that there were no elements of the gentle, concerned man whose body this monster wore in those emerald shards.

It was this discrepancy that reminded her of a crucial fact that she had lost in the suffering—_this was not real._

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, it mated with her desire to fight and sent a surge of real adrenaline into her veins. And because this was a dream, she knew anything was possible—anything, including extending her three-fingered hand and grabbing the gun from his holster. Just as they were about to cross the threshold she reached out and invited the cool metal into her incomplete hand.

He felt the disturbance at his hip and his kneejerk reaction was one of alarm. He dropped her, the hand that had been crushing her throat flying to the now-empty holster on his belt. She fell, tumbling on the ground, gasping as air finally returned to her lungs.

When he realized what had happened he turned to lunge on her, but she was at his feet, lying on her back and looking up at him along the barrel of the gun that she clutched firmly with all eight fingers. He froze, trapped.

"You won't do it, Ziva. You wouldn't shoot me. You wouldn't shoot your partner."

She could barely hear the words over her deafening heartbeat, could barely process anything except the fact that there was a loaded gun in her hand. After months and months of being helpless at the feet of her torturer, she was finally the one in control.

He was the defenseless one, now.

She shook her head, a disgusted sneer pulling at her cracked lips.

"You are not Tony," she growled, "and you have no power over me anymore."

She pulled the trigger.

The gunshot rang with a dull finality. She did not even flinch as it entered his skull, splattering her with warm droplets of blood. She watched, satisfied, as the light drained from those brutish eyes, and as it did they began to darken, first to hazel, then to brown.

She blinked, and suddenly it was Saleem before her. His body collapsed, landing with a _thud_ in a cloud of dust. It was fitting, she decided. This had begun here with Saleem, and so it would end with him. She looked down the length of her ruined body at the corpse of the man who was responsible for it all, and the truth was obvious—

Tony DiNozzo had never stepped foot in this cell except to pull her into his arms to carry her home.

Spent, she let her head fall back to the ground. The gun clattered as it slipped from her outstretched palms. She was spread over the cement, head angled to the ceiling, arms and legs extended as if in offering.

_I am ready to go home._

Darkness crept at the corners of her vision once again, but it no longer had the same threatening edge. Rather, it was cool and soothing as she let it wash over her, engulfing first her outstretched limbs in the comforting black. She closed her eyes as it moved up her torso and allowed this desert world that had haunted her for so long to dissipate. The hard concrete beneath her gave way to the soft mattress of his bed. She left the pain behind in the disintegrating desert world. She'd spent so much of her time there wanting to disintegrate and leave it all behind, but in the end it was that world that crumbled while she emerged victorious.

She awoke in reality to find herself made whole again. She was snug under a comforter and clothed in silky pajamas, with her head nestled in a pillow and surrounded by a halo of clean, soft hair. She reached up with her hands and let the tips of all ten fingers, casted though they were, run through the smooth curls.

She heard the sound of padded footsteps coming from the living room, and she looked up to see Tony appear in the doorway. For once, what flooded her upon waking was not frightened desperation but a sense of relieved calm. The light from the streetlamps filtered in through the windows beside the headboard and reflected in his eyes—his gentle, worried, familiar eyes. Her breath tumbled out in a low exhale. _There you are._

Her heart cried out in recognition, and she knew then that she'd returned to the one true reality. She wanted to weep with joy.

He approached cautiously, not sure how to deal with this new situation. She simply watched, following his moves as he came to the side of the bed and sat down so gently.

"Ziva?" he asked, so many questions rolled into one.

And although she did not need to, she went willingly into his open arms. She let herself bask in the warmth of his body and the strength of his heartbeat. He rubbed his hand up and down her back just as he always did, and for a while there was only the sound of their even breathing.

It truly hit her, then, what had happened in her dream. What she had done, what she had overcome. That twisted version of this gentle man could not hurt her anymore, could not hurt _them_ anymore.

She had won. Despite everything, she had won.

Her breathing was no longer so even, and she could feel the events of that night beginning to catch up with her. She felt herself start to tremble, felt the growing ache in her jaw and lump in her throat, the welling tears in her eyes. She let them come. She let herself go because she knew he would be there to keep her from falling apart. His steady arms held her together even as the tears dripped down her cheeks and breaths came out in gasping sobs. And she _was_ weeping then, but it was not in sadness. She was overwhelmed and overtired and she had _won._

"It's okay. You're okay," he whispered in her ear. "It's over." She let out a shuddering sob and buried her face in his shirt, wondering if he knew how right he was. "It's over," he repeated, and she exhaled and relaxed into his soft, familiar embrace.

"I know."


	9. Chapter 9

**. . .**

**Part IX**

**. . .**

When the sun rose the next morning, it brought with it a sense of infectious calm. Tony and Ziva did not say a word to each other as they woke and slid from bed, but the air between them was anything but cold. There was a warm ease to their movements, a newfound equilibrium that had not been there the night before. Push and pull, give and take. A familiar magnetism that allowed them to move effortlessly through the morning, side by side, without needing a single word.

She wondered if this is what it had felt like, before. She thought perhaps it was.

The last few weeks had been dominated by confusion and confliction. Just the thought of him made her feel entangled, caught in a web woven by both reality and hallucination and unable to tell which strands belonged to which. She had been inextricable, ensnared in the raw emotion that pulled her this way and that.

But it was as if the past night had taken a pair of scissors and _snip, snip, snipped_ until the only strands left were those of reality. They all pulled her in the same direction—toward _him,_ the man she could finally look at without confliction and without confusion. She knew the truth, finally. She knew it not only in her head but in her thumping heart, her mending bones.

Finally, she could look at him and see only Tony.

He made them scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, making hers into an omelet with vegetables and cheese without needing to ask. It filled the kitchen with an enticing aroma that made her mouth water, a foreign sensation. She could not explain it, but she was _hungry._ He placed the food in front of her and she gave him a small, grateful smile before cleaning the plate. She looked up once she had finished knew she was not imagining the pride that shone in his eyes.

He washed their plates because she could not, and, feeling guilty for never doing anything to help, she stuck around to keep him company. She listened to the sound of the running water against the hollow sink, heard the way he hummed almost inaudibly under his breath, watched the muscles in his back move as he scrubbed the pan. These details entranced her. She had not taken the time to notice them before.

He wandered to the couch and her to the dining room to work on her puzzle. She shuffled pieces around with the utmost concentration and precision, calculating each move as if the assembly were sacred. Whenever she matched two pieces, she felt almost proud. Accomplished.

It was that day that she realized she'd finished the border. Over the course of the past two weeks she had somehow managed to create the outline of the picture. In a moment of excitement, she called out his name.

"Tony!"

"Yeah?" he asked, worry plain in his tone. "Everything okay?" It had taken him mere seconds to leap from the couch to the entrance of the dining room. He looked around for the disturbance, but found only Ziva staring down happily at her accomplishment.

"I have finished the border," she informed him, feeling slightly silly for her excitement. For a moment she worried he would find it foolish, but a grin lit up his face and she knew he understood.

"Hey, that's great! I know how hard you've been working on that."

"Yes," she nodded. "For a while I was worried I was not making progress."

"But you are. I'm glad you can see that."

"It is… encouraging. To see that it is not futile."

She looked up at him with smiling eyes, and they both knew that neither was speaking of the puzzle.

"Do we have any more soup?" she wondered.

"Yep, tons."

She stood, satisfied with her work. "I think I would like some for lunch."

For a moment he simply looked at her, mouth hanging slightly open in a gape. He seemed perplexed and at first she didn't understand. She had not yet noticed the shift in her own behavior—the way she stood taller, shoulder's squared, chin up, eyes clear and focused. The way she once again commanded the room instead of blending in and submitting to the flow. She wanted something, and she no longer pushed that desire away. Instead, she stood up and took the initiative to change the world around her, even if that change was something as seemingly insignificant as a bowl of matzo ball soup.

He looked so damn proud of her, and if she was honest, she was proud of herself, too.

He heated up a pot of soup and she ate two full servings. It was barely past noon and she had already eaten more than she usually ate in an entire day; he looked puzzled but happy. She could see in his eyes that he knew something had changed, could see the burning curiosity but the unwillingness to pry. She knew he would be too polite to ask.

The day evolved in the same quiet manner that it began, the shadows of the windowsills elongating ever so gradually as the sun sank lower in the sky. But the farther it sank the more hours ticked by, and the thicker the air between them became—first with the lingering aroma of Israeli comfort food, but ultimately with the words they had not said, the explanation she had not given him. Something had changed, and she frequently caught him staring in her direction from the couch with debating eyes—to ask, or not to ask? She wondered if he was thinking about the night before, if the words still rang in his head. _It's over._

She realized as she slid another puzzle piece into place that the idea of him taking that leap, choosing to question this uncharacteristically fortunate change, did not abhor her. It did not send her stomach into knots and head into a spiral. She almost wanted him to ask, solely so she could say the words. It had been so freeing last night, a little taste of the tantalizing possibility of acknowledging her victory out loud. _It's over._

_I know_.

How easy it suddenly seemed to spill it all—every moment of pain, every endless struggle, every wish for death. She wanted to let it out, to heave it onto the floor between them and out of her body, away, away, away. The memory of that summer filled her, consumed her, spread and infected anything around it with a disgusting, black ooze. It corrupted and blinded, fed off of her like a parasite.

She wanted it out. She wanted it gone. And more than anything, she wanted it revealed in the light of day as the revolting creature it was. She wanted to lay it before her, before _them,_ to spread it at their feet as she had once been spread at the feet of her torturer, and to condemn it. No, beyond that, she wanted to face it, expose it, destroy it, so that it could never crawl back inside her and enslave her once more.

Her thumbs glossed absently over the puzzle's border. She could no longer focus, not once she'd been made so painfully conscious of the disease within her and how simple it could be to expel it. One piece of cut and polished cardboard began to look like every other. It was as if she could no longer content herself with sitting at a table and arranging the broken pieces of her life. She was restless and unsure what to do with this newfound confidence.

It should not have surprised her when Tony noticed. He appeared in the doorway just as he had that morning with a timidly hopeful smile.

"Wanna get some fresh air?"

She stood without a second thought, realizing the second he spoke the words that that was what she needed. She was tired of being cooped up in the same small apartment, and even though he had opened the window behind her, she still felt like she'd been breathing the same canned air for far too long.

"There's a walking path behind the building. How's a walk sound?"

"Great," she agreed, hoping that if she ignored her bodily limitations they would simply go away. She headed to the door to slide her feet into the tennis shoes Abby had gotten her without waiting for Tony, but ground her teeth when she remembered she could not possibly lace them up. She begrudgingly allowed him to help, knowing she should have been grateful. Now more than ever, it seemed, she wanted independence, but such a thing was impossible with so many handicaps.

Tony complained about his knees as a pretense for using the elevator, and she was grateful even if he was totally transparent. He knew she could not do stairs well, but she was grateful to not have to admit it.

Just as he'd promised, there was a gravel walking path that passed behind his building. It wove through the thin woods, which was colored red, yellow, and orange as nature began its annual march toward winter. Leaves fell from branches whenever the wind rustled through them, creating a beautiful mass of drifting flames. The ones that landed on the path made a satisfying crunching sound underfoot. The breeze chilled the air, bringing goose bumps to Ziva's skin, but the sun filtered through the leaves that still clung to their trees and warmed her, taking some of the crispness out of the early autumn evening.

"It's beautiful," Tony mused, voice mixing with the faint sound of cars and the _crunch_ of leaves and gravel.

"Yes," she agreed in a faraway voice, "it is." The path stretched endlessly in front and behind her, and on either side was an expanse of woods. A clear blue sky stretched above her, endless. It hit her then just how free she was.

They kept walking, and she could not even be bothered to consider the ache in her feet. She was too wrapped up in the intoxicating feeling of complete freedom. She'd ventured outside before—to the hospital, the salon, the grocery store, the park—and although she'd known she was free it was an altogether different experience now that she was not being dragged down by the nightmares. She could take in the world in a whole different light, now, one that wasn't tainted by the nagging possibility that none of it was real. She could fully appreciate it, now, fully appreciate the cool, fresh air and the open space around her. She was unimpeded.

They kept walking, and she did not complain even as her healing ribs began to ache, as well.

It was so peaceful, there. She could still hear the distant sound of cars and every now and then an oncoming biker or jogger would force them to the side, but other than that it was quiet, easy, natural. Tranquil. The sun reached through the branches and warmed her face, reached into her soul, and forced the foul, black ooze of her past to shrink back.

They kept walking.

"You doin' okay?" Tony checked, studying her with slight concern.

"Yes," she answered, and for once it was no lie, "I am."

"That's good. I guess you really did need to get out, huh? I didn't mean to keep you all cooped up in my apartment like that." She hated the guilt in his voice, hated that he still blamed himself for her suffering when she had forgiven him so wholly.

"You did nothing wrong," she promised. "I did not even realize this was what I needed."

"It must be nice," he considered. "After all those months, to be moving under your own power like this."

"It is," she admitted, gaze following the brown squirrel that dashed across the path in front of them. "I never thought I could feel so… light, again." He hummed.

"You know, it really is incredible." He shoved his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed straight ahead. "How much you've healed, since…" He chuckled lowly. "I mean, most of the time I'm still amazed you're alive."

"Me too," she whispered, voice almost carried away by the breeze.

"It was a miracle, really. None of us expected… _None_ of us."

He was vague enough that it took her a moment to process his words, but even when they registered, something did not quite compute. She frowned, stopping in her tracks. He halted, too, turning around to face her with confusion and worry evident in his expression.

"Something wrong?"

"You did not expect to find me alive."

His brow furrowed. "No, Mossad told us you died on the Damocles. Some bullshit about a storm. I thought you knew that was their cover story?"

Leaves swirled and spun around them and she was suddenly very, very dizzy. "No," she said again, barely in a whisper. "No one told me…" She swallowed, her head suddenly aching right along with her feet and ribs. "You thought I was dead?"

His expression was stony, almost haunted. "Yeah. For months."

"Then what were you doing in Somalia?" There was no accusation in her voice, as there may have been if she'd learned of this a few weeks ago. There was no suspicion, only confusion.

He just shrugged. "It was Saleem's fault you were dead. We weren't about to let him get away with that." Her knees went weak and her temples throbbed. No, this didn't make sense. It was simply not logical.

"Vengeance?" Her voice was thin and strained. "You flew halfway around the world_…_ to avenge _me?_"

"You sound surprised."

No, she was not surprised, she was _devastated_. Here was a man who she had treated like dirt; she had accused him, assaulted him, insulted him, abandoned him. And yet only months after she pressed a gun to his chest and admitted that _maybe she would have preferred if he'd died,_ he could hear of her death and risk his life to honor hers. Guilt wrapped its grubby fingers around her heart and squeezed, squeezed.

She no longer trusted her voice because her jaw was aching, too—a familiar ache that came with a lump in her throat and burning eyes. So when she spoke, she whispered.

"You could have died."

He blinked, clearing his throat. "Yeah, well, that was the plan."

The words settled and the air left her lungs swiftly, decisively. The breeze died, too, airborne leaves fluttering to the ground. The forest was silent, they were silent, as she reeled with the impact of his words. Horror knotted in her stomach, and though she opened her mouth no sound came out. She could not find words, could not find her voice.

Eventually, she forced something out. "_Tony,_" she breathed, staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you this."

"No," she answered a little too quickly. "No, you… I am glad you told me."

This new knowledge hurt, though, so badly. She could only imagine the pain she must have caused him, this man who had been suicidal without her, when he found her alive but screaming and accusing him of the most depraved, inhuman acts.

She did not ask him why he had gone to the desert, why he had decided to give his life in vengeance of hers. The answer was written so plainly in his face, exhibited so obviously in every single action she'd witnessed since the day he walked into her room in the psych ward and began with a hesitant _hey, Ziva._ She did not have to ask why he went to Somalia, why he was planning to die, because nothing had ever been so painfully clear as this.

He was looking away, uncomfortable, but she took a step forward. The movement brought his gaze back to hers.

"Thank you, Tony," she stressed, not entirely sure what she was thanking him for—saving her? healing her? loving her?—but still knowing it had to be said. His shoulders deflated a bit at this, and she could tell he appreciated the sentiment.

"Always," he promised, smiling softly across the few feet of space between them. He inclined his head down the path. "Want to keep walking?"

"Yes," she answered immediately, even though at that point her whole body was aching in protest. She needed time to think, to process everything that had been said. The woman she had been before the desert would have run until her lungs exploded in fire and muscles turned to jelly, but the woman she was now was painfully, physically limited. Instead of running she walked, but the intent was the same.

They started through the woods once again, the crunching of gravel filling the silence. She felt his presence more heavily now, trailing along at her side but remaining a step back to allow her to lead. Trees passed continually on either side, starting to slow gradually the farther onward they pressed. The change was almost imperceptible, but as the sun sank lower in the sky her body began to grow numb, the exhaustion catching up with her.

They had been walking for hours, and she had been pushing pain back for nearly that long. She was in nowhere near the proper state to be using physical exercise to combat her problems, but her brain was too stubborn to acknowledge this. Her breath came in small, shallow breaths and her legs moved solely because they seemed to remember doing nothing else. Her thoughts were distant, her mind elsewhere in a land of retrospection. Preoccupied with these thoughts, she had driven herself into a blind exhaustion where she staggered forward without truly registering the world around her. It was not until Tony spoke up did she realize she had been leaning on him to keep from falling.

"Ziva, the sun's setting. Why don't we call a cab to take us home?"

She blinked, suddenly feeling his supporting arm wrapped around the small of her back and resting on her hip. Her lungs, so unused to physical exertion, were on fire, so she simply nodded in response. He pulled out his phone and dialed as they diverged from the main path and onto a side one that they followed out of the woods and onto the main sidewalk. He spotted a wooden bench and tugged her over to it. She sunk down into it easily, not fighting it when her overtired body sagged against his.

"Should be here in five," he informed her, flipping the phone shut. The words reached her through a murky haze of extreme fatigue, and she could not find the energy to acknowledge them with more than a minute nod. The numbness that had carried her weak body on barely-healed feet over miles of a gravel pathway had faded, giving way to radiating aches and pains.

The taxi pulled up at the curb and Tony helped maneuver her from the bench into the backseat. She could not bring herself to sit up straight, so again she found herself slumped against him for support. His arm threaded over her shoulders and held her to his chest. Sweat beaded on her forehead and down her back, and short, hot breaths spread over his shirt. Her eyes, still blind and distant, fluttered. She could hear and feel his heartbeat under her ear, so much slower than hers, and she used the pulse to ground her in the present. Its even tempo calmed her and helped to steady her breaths.

Though they had been walking for hours, it took mere minutes to arrive back in front of his building. Tony slipped a few dollars to the driver and helped Ziva out, still allowing her to lean on him as they made their way inside and to the elevator.

Eventually, Ziva found herself on Tony's couch. The soft cushions gave way beneath her as she sank into them, relieved and exhausted. He brushed a few sweaty curls from her face, tucking them behind her ear with such light, delicate care that for a moment she thought she'd imagined it. She felt as if she could fall asleep right here and not wake up for weeks. The thought was tempting, and unconsciousness tugged insistently on the hems of her cargo pants.

"You're cold," he observed, despite her flushed cheeks and dripping brow. He was right, she noted, shivering unconsciously. Contradictorily. She looked forward to being able to shower tonight.

He grabbed a blanket out of the cabinet in the end table and laid it over her, tucking the ends around her as her mother had when she was a little girl still afraid of the dark. Ziva was afraid of a different kind of darkness now, one much more powerful that could not be defeated with a simple nightlight, but even this new enemy could be weakened by kind hands and soft blankets.

Under drooping eyelids she saw him make his way to the fireplace, flicking the switch beside it and igniting the gas flames. It reminded her of chilly winter evenings at her aunt and uncle's home in Haifa. Her uncle would bring logs in from the pile outside and tend to the fire all night, metal poker in hand. From there, memories far more horrid pushed and pushed at her, fighting to be acknowledged. An iron fire poker, glowing red-hot and sizzling as it melted the sweaty skin from her bones; flames spreading across a dirty cell, enclosing, enclosing, licking at her legs and swallowing both herself and the ghost of her baby sister whole. The memories pushed, but she pushed back, and she saw nothing but flashes. She pulled the blanket tighter around her body, embracing its protective warmth and calling back the far more pleasant memories of lifeless green-turned-hazel-turned-brown eyes, a smoking gun, and a cloud of dust. She stared into the controlled flames stretching upwards in Tony's hearth, and absorbed the comforting heat.

Her eyes were tired, her muscles were tired, her brain was tired. The couch and blanket provided a cocoon of warmth and the flickering of the flames a hypnotizing lullaby. Her mind drifted, practically blank for the first time in far too long. Light, weightless, with thoughts of white gossamer.

The shrill cry of a cell phone pulled her back to the present. Her eyelids dragged open and she blinked, realizing she was still alone on the couch, huddled limply under the blanket and in front of the fireplace. She could see Tony in the kitchen, standing at the counter with a butter knife in hand and the phone tucked under his ear.

"Woah, slow down, slow down," she heard him speak into the receiver. The words moved like molasses through the air, through her brain. A pause, then, "You're sure there's no way…?" He listened for an answer and frowned. "No, no, it's okay. I'm sure she'll understand." Pause. "Yeah, that might be good. I'll talk to her." He chuckled. "Good luck. Don't overdose on caffeine." He flipped the phone shut and huffed, shoving it back in his pocket. The knife clattered noisily into the sink as he picked up something on a white paper towel and began to make his way back to the living room.

"Abby?" she questioned. He nodded solemnly and sat the paper towel down on her lap—a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cut diagonally. Her stomach growled.

"Figured you'd be hungry, you haven't eaten since lunch. After all that exercise…"

She nodded, picking up the sandwich carefully so as to not get any of its sticky contents on her casts. "I am. Thank you." She took a bite and felt the sugar return some of the sapped energy to her body.

He sat down gingerly on the coffee table in front of her, hands hanging folded between his spread legs. She frowned.

"Something is wrong?"

He heaved a sigh, running his fingers through his hair. It was wet, she noticed. He must have cleaned himself up while she drifted in her exhaustion.

"Yeah. Agent Carter's team caught a pretty bad case. Serial killer, tons of bodies, race against the clock, the whole shebang. Abby's probably going to be working through the night with all the evidence they're bringing her."

"She cannot come tonight," Ziva synthesized, cutting to the chase. It was not a question.

"Nope. She offered to come early tomorrow, before work, though, but…"

Ziva shook her head. "No, I do not want her to do that." She remembered how those all-night cases had been, the ones with mounds of evidence and the knowledge that every passing second could mean life or death for another innocent victim. "If she gets to go home tonight, she should sleep."

"Yeah, I agree," he exhaled, not taking his eyes from hers. They were hesitant, uncertain, gauging her expression. She bristled.

"The bandages need to be changed." She was sticky with sweat and going on three days of the same bandages and no shower. The idea of falling asleep like this made her skin prickle. After four months of filth and perspiration, she despised feeling so unclean.

"Well, I mean… I could call Ducky?"

"Ducky is likely working just the same as Abby."

"Gibbs?"

"He lives on the other side of town."

"McGee?"

Ziva shook her head solemnly. "Tony… you do not have to do this."

"Do what?"

"Pretend you do not see where this is headed."

Behind them, the fire sputtered. He ran his hand over his mouth, his stubbly jaw. "Look, I…" He pursed his lips. "I don't want to suggest anything we both know isn't realistic."

She blinked and her knees pulled upwards. There was one solution to this, and it was staring them both in the eyes, but neither seemed quite able to meet its gaze. "Why do you assume it is unrealistic?"

His brow furrowed. "You know why, Ziva." The table creaked beneath him as he shifted his weight. "A week ago you couldn't even look me in the eye unless you'd just woken up from a nightmare. Now…"

His words wrapped around her heart and twisted. "And you do not think things have changed?"

"No, of course they have," he rushed, and she wondered if he was remembering their easy dynamic this morning and the way she allowed him to practically carry her out of the woods. "But I offered to do this just last night, remember? And you didn't act like it was a step you were ready to take."

She looked down at her casted hands, frowning. "Things change."

"Overnight?" he asked skeptically.

"Sometimes."

He frowned, trying to disguise the hope in his voice. "You really want me to do this?"

She paused, pondering this. It seemed like the right thing to do, if she were honest. Her bandages needed changed, her body washed, and she could not do it on her own. Here was a man perfectly capable and perfectly willing to help and to take care of her. It was the logical thing to do.

She knew, however, that it extended far beyond logic. Her intuition—or gut, as Gibbs would have called it—insisted that this was the correct path. It was easy to recall their conversation only hours ago, when Tony had revealed just how heavy of a burden he still carried. She could see how the guilt weighed him down, how it compounded on the aching grief of losing her. She could also see how the knowledge of what she'd thought he had done to her hovered and threatened to crush him. He'd listened to her scream too many times, seen the post-nightmare terror in her eyes too many times, felt her desperately cling to him too many times.

And she saw the hope in his eyes at the prospect of what this night could be—a chance for him to face her suffering, to come to terms with it, to see with his own eyes the pain she'd thought he'd caused… and to make it right with a gentle touch. Despite the emotions it would surely dredge up, she found that the idea brought peace to her soul, and she wondered if it wasn't because it would bring peace to his.

She wanted to cough up that foul black ooze of her trauma that stood between them and sweep it away. She wanted the air between them to be clean and clear. She wanted to view him without that sticky black veil—to come together and heal.

So when he asked if she was sure, she nodded.

"Yes."

She noticed the way his hands shook ever so slightly, how he seemed to be breathing heavier, how his eager eyes blinked move than usual. He had been waiting a while for this, she realized, and she wondered how much of him had thought this day would never come.

When he spoke, his voice wavered. "Okay."

She finished her sandwich and, with peanut butter still stuck to the roof of her mouth, stood from the couch. It was colder without the blanket, and colder still as she led the way to his bathroom and away from the fireplace. She shivered.

"You okay?"

She looked up at him with a raised brow. "You do not need to ask me that every few minutes, you know."

"Just checking."

Her lips pursed. "I mean it. I do not want to do this if you ask that every time I flinch." The question tended to wear on her. She was tired of lying, of giving that prescribed response that her father had drilled into her—_I am fine._ In truth, there was no easy answer, not now that her life was such a hopeless mess.

Surely it would not be easy to bare herself to him. Surely she would shudder, surely she would flinch, surely it would trigger memories she would prefer stayed far, far away. But she needed him to soldier on, not to pause every time his touch made her shiver. She feared the unnecessary protraction of his scrutiny.

"I won't say a word," he promised.

With a hand light on her upper back, he guided her to the bathroom. The tile floor was cold under her feet as she moved to sit lightly on the lid of the toilet. He lingered by the sink, uncertain.

"Um, how do you want to…?" His eyes moved between her fully clothed form and the shower. She frowned.

"I would, uh…" she swallowed. "I would prefer if you just used a washcloth. I do not want to go to the trouble of taping up my casts." Unspoken but understood was the other reason—the intimate, naked vulnerability required to allow him to shower or bathe her.

"No problem," he replied, his tone telling her he was trying just a bit too hard to act like this was normal. "So should we…?" He gestured vaguely to her midsection, but she understood his intention.

"Help me," she instructed, wrapping the bottom of the shirt over the tips of her free thumbs and pulling upward. His hands helped pull the collar over her head, and she marveled at the care he took not to touch her more than necessary. They let the shirt fall to the floor, and she tucked a displaced curl behind her ear.

He did not ask, this time, before starting on her bandages. His fingers, though light and careful, were purposeful as they began to unravel the first layer around her upper arms, until she could feel the cool air brushing up against her bruised skin. She did not look down, and did not look at Tony.

He moved to her other arm next, and after began on her torso. She kept her gaze fixed on a point beyond him, beyond his searching eyes and cautious ministrations. His hands brushed against the underside of her arms as he unwrapped and unwrapped and unwrapped her like a macabre holiday gift—only there was no excitement in his movements, only trepidation, and the occasion was far from celebratory. Mutual awareness of the importance of this night turned the cool air solemn and slowed his movements. Another layer of bandage gone, gone, until she felt a light draft press up against the bare skin of her back. She kept her eyes on the towel rack behind him as he pulled he last of the bandage away, leaving her torso completely stripped. A shiver prickled down her spine, under the crisscross gashes she could only hope were healing. The sudden cold tightened her stomach and her bared chest.

He was still. She could feel the heat of his hands that hovered centimeters from her sides, longing to touch but so very afraid. The soiled bandage slipped from his fingers to join her shirt on the floor. She swallowed and braved herself to look at him. His expression was heavy but dignified, and his eyes spoke the question she had forbidden him to ask.

Her eyes slid closed and head dipped ever so slightly, motioning for him to continue.

His fingers moved to the button of her cargo pants next, and she felt herself stiffen. She tightened her jaw, forcing herself not to remember. The memories of the fear and dread and humiliation from that last of nights in the desert fought to be felt. They clawed at the inside of their cage, demanding attention and acknowledgment, tearing their way to the forefront of her memory with their jagged edges. Her head twisted away and heavy hands moved to trap his that had already managed to undo the button. He froze, breath catching.

"Ziva?" he worried. She sucked in a breath, trying to clear her mind of _him,_ and forced herself to loosen her grip. Her thumb moved from pressing almost painfully into Tony's palm to sliding down and wrapping lightly over his wrist. Slowly, carefully, she guided him in pulling the zipper down. She stood to allow him to remove the pants, and soon they joined the rest of her clothing in a pool on the tile floor. He unraveled the bandages that wrapped around her thighs, calves, ankles, leaving her naked but for her underwear, goose-bump skin exposed for the world to see.

His face was a picture of sorrow, and she wondered if it was the lighting, or had his face always been so pale? His lips were parted, slightly, as if he wanted to say something but could not find the words. His fingers twitched and she knew he longed to touch.

She bristled, uncomfortable, and it instantly broke his gaze. He went back to work, his motions purposeful once again. He stood and turned on the sink, waiting until steam rose from the basin before pulling a washcloth from the cabinet and soaking it. He squeezed it out and turned back to her. She saw that he'd pulled a curtain over his eyes.

The cloth was hot at first over her skin. He started with her arms, cleansing her body of the sweat and filth of three days' accumulation. He moved almost timidly, afraid of harming her with all of the still-healing wounds. She felt him pause as he brushed over a spot just above where her casts ended, near the crook of her elbow.

She could no longer resist—she looked down. His fingers brushed oh-so-lightly over a small cluster of pinprick sized scars and she shuddered, but did not pull away. He looked up with yet another silent question, seeking confirmation of his suspicions. She granted it with a small nod.

He moved the washcloth up over her shoulders, around her neck, behind her ears. It moved to her other arm before coming back to her torso, warming and cleansing the area that had once been adorned with a golden star her father had given her so many years ago. Now, it was decorated only with fading bruises, and, a little further south, red scars the shape of half-moons from where her torturer had sunk his teeth into the supple skin of her breasts. These Tony washed lightly, quickly, with hands that trembled and eyes that stayed averted from hers.

He ran the washcloth under the faucet again, and the hot water made the clusters of burns on her stomach smolder. She grimaced and tried to stay quiet, but her midsection tightened in response to the pain and he noticed immediately. The expression he shot her was profusely apologetic. As efficiently and painlessly as possible, he continued trying to clean her stomach, which was a mottled mess of fading bruises ornamented by arrays of jagged knife wounds and singed skin—yellow, red, white, and purple.

He moved down her legs, glossing over anything too close to the most forbidden parts of her body. Her feet were swollen after their long walk, her right one still bruised from many months ago when it was crushed with a club. It was her ankles that seemed to catch his attention the most, however. They were torn open, encircled in violent rings of red. She imagined that her wrists looked worse.

If his face was pale before, it was green now.

The washcloth moved up the back of her calves and she turned to allow him access to her back. She heard him suck in a low, horrified gasp. He had seen it all before, but that had been a month ago. He must have forgotten what it looked like, what terrible damage a single-tail whip could cause at the hands of a sadist versed in the art of torture—how it could leave a body a rent mess of shredded skin and sinew.

Turned from him, she could not see his face as he took in the sight, but she understood enough from the audible sound of a brave swallow and low breathing. He gathered her hair and draped it over her shoulder and was so careful when dragging the wet cloth over the gashes. Every time she winced, his breath hitched.

He finished with little fanfare, the warm cloth lingering for a moment at the back of her neck. She heard it flop into the sink and he reached out to grab a towel, wrapping it delicately around her shoulders even though she was not really wet. He did it to preserve her modesty, even if only for a moment, and she wondered just when this partner—friend, caregiver, former lover—of hers had grown up.

"The bandages are out there," she told him, gesturing to the door. She stood up on her own power and noticed the way his arms twitched, instinctively moving to help her. She held the corners of the towel tight to her chest as a rather unpleasant wave of vulnerability hit her.

He led them out into his bedroom, gesturing for her to sit on top of the comforter while he grabbed some clean bandages and her pajamas. It was all still in the bag Abby had brought—she had not felt comfortable moving her things into his drawers.

He rooted through the bag and pulled out the necessary items, then began to move toward the bed. She shook her head, gesturing back to the bag.

"The antibiotic ointment."

He frowned, pulling a tube from a side pocket. "Didn't know you had this stuff."

She shrugged. "There was no reason for you to."

He moved back to the bed, mattress dipping as he sat next to her. Without waiting for him to ask, she angled herself with her back to him and dropped the towel; she preferred he see her ragged wounds than bare chest. It was warmer in his bedroom, in more ways than just temperature. She did not feel so uncomfortable with his stare, anymore. He had seen the worst of it. Now, she knew, was the time he needed to come to terms with it—for them to _both_ come to terms with it.

She heard the faint sound of him unscrewing the plastic lid. He squeezed a bit of the ointment onto his fingers and she closed her eyes in anticipation, gathering her hair to fall down her front.

His fingers were different than the rag he'd used to wash her. They were softer, smoother, but oh, so much more intimate. The same hands that had torn open her skin worked tirelessly now to heal it. She could feel every quaver, every hesitation, every moment where the pain of her suffering overwhelmed him.

He finished with her back, eventually, so she turned around to give him access to the rest of her wounds. It was so much more difficult face to face, when she could see the tender way his fingers ghosted over her skin, feel his heavy gaze, see the slump of his shoulders and the way he breathed heavily through his mouth that hung slightly ajar. His guilt was tangible, pouring from his fingertips, his suffering eyes, his parted lips. The air clotted with it, stifling them.

He finished spreading the ointment over the front of her torso and moved lower, sliding from the bed and tending to her legs with almost penitential reverence. He made himself low before her, head bowed to almost touch her knees. Her eyes burned at the sight, and she wanted nothing more in that moment than to absolve him of this burden he'd never deserved to carry.

When he was finished, he capped the tube and placed it on the bedside table, picking up the bandages in its place. He slid back over to her. His jaw was squared, and he would not meet her gaze. He was slipping, and she ached to comfort him. She wanted to lift his chin, to draw her fingers over and down his cheekbone and _show_ him her forgiveness, but her hands were heavy and trapped.

"Tony…" she whispered, deciding to use her voice instead. He looked up, then, with liquid eyes that carried so much of her pain, and some of his own. He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing.

"How did this happen, Ziva?" The words were hoarse and uneven and so unbelievably weighted. She sucked in a breath, deciding on an honest answer.

"I got captured."

He grimaced. "That wasn't your fault. I'm sure you fought like hell."

She closed her eyes for a moment and saw a sunken ship, a decimated team. A crowded dock and a fateful phone call. _Ziva, it is suicide—_

"I was supposed to die."

The air left his lungs in a low _whoosh._ "Ziva…"

"My mission was never to succeed. I went in alone. I… I _chose…_"

He looked horrified. "To die?"

She shook her head. "I chose to obey," she whispered. "I had nothing left." And oh, what a perfect tragedy her life was. A cautionary tale fit for the storybooks, warning: _there once was a woman who so craved her father's pride…_

He surprised her by chuckling lowly, darkly.

"What is funny?"

He shook his head, thumb moving over the roll of bandages in his hands. "Just that we both walked into that camp hoping to die."

And oh, what a morbid parallel it was—morbid and completely true.

"But here we are."

He closed his eyes for a moment, soaking this in. "Yeah. Here we are."

He moved back to the task at hand, then, and she lifted her arms slightly to allow him to wrap her torso. She stayed still and silent as he covered her back up in the clean bandages and then, over that, her pajamas. The material was soft and warm, her skin beneath it clean. His body was so close to hers that she could feel its heat, and she realized then that his hands still lingered at the sides of her shoulders. His right hand moved slowly, slowly, to slide up her neck and cup the side of her face. Her lips parted and eyelids fluttered; his touch was so warm, so comforting, but so loaded with the pain he carried. She leaned into his palm, in, in, until her head was inches away from his shoulder. He slid his hand back slowly, thumb trailing, until he cupped the back of her head and allowed her to fall into his arms. He cradled her against him, gently, gently, her head tucked into his neck and his head resting on hers. She could feel and hear him breathing, low and hot just above her ear. Sometimes it wavered, and as the seconds ticked by she felt his body begin to tremble in time. He was clinging to her, now, as hard as he could without hurting her, and she wanted to whisper to him _shh, shh,_ but nothing came out. He was spiraling, his breath hitching, holding her like he would never hold her again.

When he spoke, it was in a broken, pleading whisper.

"Please, Ziva… _please _forgive me." She heard tears in his voice, tears of guilt and sorrow for everything they'd become. Everything he'd done. She wanted to cry along with him.

"There is nothing to forgive," she promised. Something dreadful built and released in his chest.

"I never wanted this to happen. I never…" He shuddered, his fingers knotting desperately in the hair at the back of her head.

"Shh," she soothed, pressing the side of her face into his neck. "I know. I know."

He shuddered again, and she pulled back so as to look him in the eyes. She was unsurprised to find them wet and crushed with guilt. She longed to take his face into her hands, to comfort him as he so often comforted her.

"You did nothing wrong. Nothing," she whispered, with every ounce of sincerity she could possibly muster. "And even if you had, I forgive you. I promise you, Tony, _I forgive you._"

He squeezed his eyes shut, face crumpled. He tucked his head to his chest, breathing through her words and the storm of emotions they caused. She ran her thumb over his eyebrow, his temple, down the side of his face and over his jaw. It rested at the base of his chin and gently pulled his face back up. When his eyes opened again, they were wide and swimming. Her words had wicked the pain away and left only gratefulness.

"Thank you," he expressed with a voice still low and hoarse.

She shook her head. "You do not deserve what has happened." She wet her lips, gaze falling to her lap. "I am so sorry."

He reached out, hand cupping her jaw. Slowly, slowly, he leaned forward. She did not pull away when his lips planted themselves on her cheek, so near to the corner of her mouth. So soft, so gentle, so Tony. Her head tilted into his, and he lingered, his breath warm.

"It's gonna be okay," he whispered when he pulled back. A small smile graced his mouth. Hand still pressed softly against her jaw and the side of her neck, he moved backwards, repositioning them. She moved effortlessly with him toward the headboard, sliding under the covers and onto the pillow, falling so easily into the familiar position. She heard his heartbeat under his ear, felt the warmth of his skin on her cheek, the strength of his arms around her.

They settled down and he clicked off the lamp on the side table. As she drifted off to sleep, his words, low though they had been, still echoed in her ears._ It's gonna be okay._

Positive words, hopeful words, peaceful words.

Truthful words.

**. . .**

He awoke naturally. There were no strangled screams, labored breaths, or muted thuds to yank him from sleep—only, rather, the soft presence at his side and the bright morning sunlight that seeped though his lids. He blinked.

He lay on his back and Ziva on her stomach, half on top of him with a plaster-covered arm draped over his midsection and her head nestled cozily at the crook of his arm. Messy curls covered half of her face, but what was visible to him was a picture of sound sleep. She looked peaceful. Whatever customary worry had gripped his heart upon awakening slackened and fell away, and he exhaled heavily from his mouth.

The last night came back to him swiftly, in one fell stroke that had his head falling back on the pillow and stomach twisting. He made the mistake of closing his eyes, only to see furious red scars burned into the back of his lids. Evidence of her suffering, of what she'd thought _he'd_ inflicted, a macabre vermilion painting stretched and crisscrossed over the canvas of her body.

_I forgive you._

And just like that, it shifted. Despair turned to hope, horror to relief, desperate longing to fulfillment. He could feel her warm, torn skin beneath his, not shying away even as he traced her most ragged scars with his fingertips—she'd let him heal her. His lips burned, and he longed to kiss her again, to feel the way she moved into him, into his so very intimate gesture.

Shame tugged lightly on his heart, forcing him to remember his hot tears and desperate pleas. He had broken down before her, before_ Ziva._ She had been baring to him the scars of four months of inhuman torture, and yet he had been the one to break down.

But he could not regret it, not when he remembered the beautiful words she'd cooed to him when he clutched her tightly in his arms.

_You did nothing wrong._

His breakdown had been a long time coming, he knew. He had been fighting it, fighting it, because dammit, Ziva was the one who needed help. He never could have imagined how much better it would feel on the other side, how freeing it would have been to debase himself before her and beg her forgiveness with tears rolling down his cheeks. It was as if the guilt that had been dragging him down for over a month had seeped from his body while he slept; crawled over the wooden floor, through the crack in the window, and away from them forever. He wondered if he wouldn't float away if not for the woman sleeping with her arm around him.

He lifted his head up to read the clock on the bedside table. _Nine thirty-seven,_ it read. He frowned—they had slept for twelve hours.

His gut tugged at him, like he was forgetting something important. Eventually he remembered a short phone call he'd gotten yesterday afternoon

_Don't forget, Ziver's got her appointments tomorrow. Be at Bethesda at noon._

He laid his head back down on the pillow and felt her begin to stir, groaning lowly, sleepily.

"Tony?" she murmured through barely parted lips. He smiled.

"Today's the day, Ziva."

She frowned, cracking one eye just barely open. "Hmm?"

"We're gonna go get your casts off."

She opened both eyes then, blinking a few times. "Already?"

"It's been a week since your last appointment."

"It has," she mused, repositioning so that she lay on her back next to him. She held her hands out before her, and was that disbelief in her eyes?

"Appointment's at noon, so we should probably consider getting up soon."

"Why, what time is it?" She lifted her head to look at the clock, and her eyes bulged. "Oh."

"We must've been tired."

She nodded her agreement, flexing and stretching her limbs. She sat up, and he wondered at the easy way she moved.

"I am sore," she mused as she slid out of bed.

"We walked a lot yesterday."

"Yes. It is a good kind of sore."

He got up after she did and headed to the bathroom to give her some privacy. He washed his face and brushed his teeth, and when he emerged he found her dressed in a sweater and a pair of leggings. She stood at his dresser, struggling with a hairbrush.

"Need help?"

"I can do it," she grimaced, but it soon became obvious to both of them that that was not the case. He came up behind her and she relinquished the brush to his hand.

He was as careful as he had been with her wounds the night before. Luckily the knots came out easily, and soon he was left holding a smooth mass of chocolate curls. She handed him a hair tie, and he did his best to pull it up. The ponytail ended up slightly lopsided, but it worked.

They headed to the kitchen and decided on waffles for breakfast. She sat at the island while he mixed the ingredients, and he saw the longing to help in her eyes. He suddenly became very impatient for her to get the casts removed, so she could become fully involved in life once again. The layers of plaster delegated her a perpetual observer to the world in which he knew she longed to participate.

He served her waffle with bananas and whip cream, and she ate every bite. It made him smile to see her sitting across from him, chewing every bite with gusto.

"You seem happy this morning," he mused between forkfuls of their sugary breakfast.

She shrugged. "I slept through the night. I am well-rested."

"You didn't have a nightmare?" He knew that just because neither of them had woken up did not mean she hadn't dreamed.

A small, pleased smile crossed her lips. She looked down at her plate. "No, I didn't"

"Do you know why?"

"It could be a lot of things, I suppose."

"Do you think they're gone for good?"

She sighed, setting her fork down. "The nightmares that I told you about, the ones I thought were real… I do not think _they_ will be returning." There was confidence in her voice as she said this, and he knew there was something she had not told him. Strangely enough, he found he did not mind. "But I cannot say I will never have another nightmare."

He pushed his food around on the plate as silence fell. He knew what he wanted to say, but he was not sure how to say it.

"Look, about last night…"

She shook her head. "You do not need to say anything."

"No," he insisted, "I do." He wet his lips, taking a deep breath. "Thank you, Ziva. For what you did, what you said, what you… allowed…" He shook his head. "I know none of it was easy for you."

Bravery solidified in her eyes. "We needed to do that, yes?"

"Yeah," he answered, "Yeah, we did."

She smiled softly at him and shoveled the last bite of food into her mouth. Something warm flooded his chest as their eyes locked over the table, something that felt very much like pride. Her forgiveness filled the space between them, bridging the gap.

He smiled back.

**. . .**

They cut her casts off on a Sunday.

The saw was loud, very loud, and she would have been lying if she'd said it didn't frighten her. But she had braved herself, and soon the plaster that had trapped her hands for a month fell away in two blue, half-moon shells. They revealed two hands, pale and atrophied, as skinny and fragile as bird bones. Immobility had whittled them away to almost nothing, but still they were _her _hands, her fingers, her knobby knuckles. Her grandmother had believed that one's future could be read in the lines that stretched across the palms, and Ziva found herself wondering if this suffering had been written on hers all along.

Her wrists had begun to heal, leaving her with what would eventually be a bracelet of ragged scars. The casts had concealed, as well, large clusters of round burns on her forearms, the area where Saleem had first begun measuring days in cigarettes put out against her skin. These they cleaned and wrapped in new bandages. Her skeletal hands protruded from this sleeve of tan that now mummified her entire arm. She flexed her fingers—the unused muscles resisted.

"It will take a while for you to regain full mobility," the doctor warned. "You'll likely be sore for a while, but keep working at it. We're going to get you scheduled for a series of rehab appointments for the next few weeks, to see if we can't get them back in nice, working order." He pulled out a notepad and scribbled down a phone number. "I know you have an appointment with Dr. Herron now, so when you get home give this number a call and we'll get you scheduled." He handed the paper to Tony, who had come forward from where he had been standing in the corner of the room.

From there they went upstairs to see the psychiatrist. Ziva walked awkwardly, unsure what to do with her newly freed hands. She settled on letting them hang at her sides.

Dr. Herron was expecting her, meeting her in the doorway with a broad smile. Tony stayed behind in the waiting room as Ziva entered the office and took a seat on the sectional couch.

"How does it feel?" the doctor inquired, sitting in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table. She had her head inclined to the bare hands that sat limp in her patient's lap.

"It feels…" Ziva sucked in a breath, "strange. But good." A corner of her mouth tugged upward. "Wonderful, even."

The doctor crossed her legs under the clipboard. "What all has changed since we talked last, Ziva?"

Where had she been a week ago? She had little concept of time any longer. She remembered going back to Gibbs's after her last appointment. It was hard to believe that she had been at Tony's for such little time.

"So much," Ziva answered. "So much."

"Like what?"

"I moved in with Tony."

At this, the doctor froze. She looked up with a raised eyebrow. "Well, it seems to have helped you."

"What do you mean?"

"You seem to be doing much better than last week."

The doctor was right, surely. There was no denying that living at Tony's had gone a long way to Ziva's recovery. Still, she was curious. "What makes you say that?"

Pen paused on paper. "The way you carry yourself, for starters. You seem much more confident. And it's in your eyes, too. They're… clearer." Dr. Herron shrugged. "You do not seem to be living in fear anymore."

The last moments of her final nightmare played back behind her eyes. The gunshot, the recoil, the cloud of dust that swallowed the body of a dead man who was not Tony. She remembered lying spread-eagled on the floor of her cell, hard concrete melting into a soft mattress that came up to embrace her weary but triumphant body. And then last night, when Tony's hands cleaned, treated, and bandaged even the most horrific of wounds, and she had uttered those words of forgiveness that were as important to her as they were to him.

She had won, and she no longer lived in fear.

"I know what is real, now," Ziva confessed. "The world makes sense again."

"I'm so glad to hear that, Ziva." The doctor uncrossed her legs and sat forward on the chair. "It sounds to me like you're well on your way to healing."

Ziva bit her lip, looking down at her lap, thumbs ghosting over atrophied skin. "I want to get better. I do not want this to haunt me anymore."

"You're going to get there," Dr. Herron promised. "Ziva, when I took your case, I didn't know what the outcome would be. I'd never seen anything like it before. Honestly, I wasn't even sure it was fixable. But you…" She shook her head. "You're doing it. You're healing. And really, it's nothing _I _did. You're probably the strongest, most resilient patient I've ever had."

Ziva's cheeks got hot. She was unused to hearing such compliments and unsure of how to accept them. "I have had help."

"Yes, but this came from you. You could've given up."

She pursed her lips. "I do not give up." Even in Somalia, on that last night when despair had driven her to fashion a noose from discarded clothing, she had not given up; she had been fighting back in the only way she could. But now, she was surrounded by those who wanted her to live, and for the first time in months she could include herself in their numbers. There were other ways to fight back now, and there were things to fight _for._

Tony was waiting for her outside when the session ended. He was not the only one, however. Gibbs sat in the chair next to him, and they both stood when they saw her exit the office.

"What are you doing here?" Ziva asked the grey-haired man. They met in the middle of the waiting room, and she quickly realized that she'd missed his stoic presence.

"Heard you got your casts off today," he answered. "How's it feel?"

She clenched and unclenched her hands into fists at her sides simply because she could. "Strange, but good. I feel… much lighter."

"You can finally help DiNozzo around the apartment now," he teased with a crooked smile. She accepted it in good humor.

"I suspect I will be making most of our meals," she ribbed with a sideways glance at Tony. He frowned.

"Hey, you like my cooking!"

"That is true," she conceded.

"Come over tomorrow for dinner," he invited, sobering. "Miss havin' you around, Ziver."

Her gaze flickered to the floor. "I miss you, too. We can invite everyone, yes?"

"Whatever you want," he replied. His hand slid into his pocket. "Got something for you. Hold out your hand."

She frowned, complying to his wishes. "What…?"

In Gibbs's hand was a small velvet jewelry box. He placed it lightly in her outstretched palm. Her fingers were still weak, however, and she struggled to open it; he noticed, and did it for her.

The lid hinged open, and the bright white lights of the hospital waiting room reflected off of glinting gold. Her breath caught in her throat as she took in the contents of the small box.

"Gibbs…"

"Everybody pitched in. It's a gift from all of us. Welcome home, Ziva." He lifted the necklace from its pillow and let the cool metal chain pool in the palm of her hand. She stared at it, mesmerized.

The pendant was different in style than the one she'd lost—the one she'd had stolen from her on her first day of captivity. It was smaller, more delicate, but equally beautiful. Her jaw ached, unsteady fingers trembled.

"I… I do not know what to say," she muttered, eyes still fixed on the golden star.

"Want me to put it on?" Tony offered. She nodded, dazed, and dropped the necklace into his palm. The chain was cool and his fingers warm as he clasped it at the nape of her neck. Soon, the Star of David hung freely at her chest, and its weight brought Ziva more comfort than she ever could have expected. It was as if a lost part of herself had been returned—different now, surely, but still fitting effortlessly. Her bony fingers fluttered up to her neck, tracing the six-point star with reverence.

"It is beautiful, thank you," she expressed, gaze shining with genuine gratitude. "Make sure you tell the others I said that."

"Tell 'em yourself at dinner tomorrow," Gibbs replied lightly. She nodded.

"I am looking forward to it."

He nodded. "I gotta get back to work," he told her, inclining his head toward the elevator.

"We'll walk out with you," Tony suggested.

They split paths at the parking garage with thank you's and promises to see each other the next night at dinner. Ziva slipped into the passenger seat of Tony's car and they drove in silence all the way back to his apartment. It was not uncomfortable or awkward—rather, it was pensive. She spent most of the drive looking down at her lap, at her fidgeting angular hands. Bruised and ghostly though they were, she rejoiced in looking at them.

They pulled up to his apartment building, and she found that she was glad to be back. She wondered idly when she'd begun to think of his apartment as home.

The elevator dropped them off on the correct floor and he slipped the key into the lock. He pushed the door open to reveal the bright, clean apartment, lit by the mid-afternoon sunshine streaming through the windows. She walked into the open space, letting her fingers wander over every surface—his bookshelf, the end table, the mantle. She felt him watch her as she drifted to the piano, lifting the lid and letting newly freed fingers dance experimentally across the keyboard. She plucked out the melody to some distant, Hebrew lullaby, one hummed lazily by a golden, motherly voice on a blanket under the stars.

The notes wafted and faded and she headed into the dining room. Her fingers explored doorknobs, the backs of chairs, and the dark, glossy finish of the table. Then they came upon the puzzle pieces.

She picked one up, rolling it over in her hands. She played with its edges, studied it, how it felt between her fingers, then put it into place with the others, adding yet another piece to the growing array.

She both felt and heard Tony's presence behind her. A few weeks ago it would have alarmed her, but now it caused her shoulders to deflate and muscles to relax. His hands found their way to her shoulders and applied steady, comforting pressure.

"How do they feel?"

She blinked slowly. "They are… stiff. Sore."

His thumbs rubbed little circles over her shoulder blades. "They'll get better."

She nodded. "I will work very hard in rehab, yes?" A thought struck her, then, muting the optimism in her eyes. "When do you have to return to work?"

He moved to stand at her right, back up against the table. "Depends. Why, getting sick of me already?"

"Tony," she huffed, angling herself toward him. Her expression demanded seriousness.

"I've got enough comp time to cover me 'til next week," he admitted.

She looked away, fingers ghosting over a displaced puzzle piece. "I do not know what I will do all day without you here."

"We'll figure it out," he promised. "I mean you can do anything. Draw, cook, watch TV, read, go spar at the gym…"

"Yes," she agreed. It was slightly overwhelming, now that the future was staring her in the face. She had never had so many options before; she had never had the power to choose what she wanted to do with her life. This was unprecedented, and she felt wildly unprepared.

"We'll figure it out," he repeated. "We've got time. All the time in the world, really."

It was a comforting thought, albeit a foreign one. For the first time in her admittedly short but tumultuous life, death no longer stared her in the face at every turn. She did not have to worry about dying tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. Her world was no longer one of guns and bombs and running, running, running; nor was it a desert world of swirling sand and endless torture. Her life now was one that strove for nothing short of peace.

She felt his hand on her bandaged forearm and turned to face him. His fingers slid down, down, over her wrist, until she felt them meet bare skin. A shiver ran down her spine as her small, bony fingers were wrapped in his. He did the same with the other hand, sheltering both.

It was the first time someone had held her hands in five months.

Something tugged at her, at her memories, and for once they yielded with little resistance. His fingers wrapped around hers called the memory of their summer together, pulling forward those carefree nights of red wine and cheeks flushed with desire, the easy way they moved together, brazen, unashamed. She felt remnants of that now, with the tenderness of his hands and gaze, but the passion that had burned so furiously during those months was different now. It had been reshaped, repurposed… and now it settled, different.

"So this is our second chance, huh?"

Her stomach twisted, and she suddenly wanted to fall into him just as she fell into the memories taking new forms around her. His eyes were green and shining and oh-so-hopeful as they held hers.

Slowly, not daring to break their gaze, she moved their hands up, up, up, until her palms rested flat on his chest. Not for one second did his hands stop shielding hers, and not for one second did she expect them to.

Beneath her palms she could feel the warmth of his skin, the steady pumping of his heart, the gentle rise and fall with his lungs. She held them there, just feeling. His head ducked slightly but he did not look away, not even as the mutual reverence in their eyes thickened the air, quieted the room.

_Our second chance…_

"Yes," she responded in a soft, aching voice, and she felt him deflate beneath her palms. His fingers slid between hers and he shuddered, leaning his head farther down; closer to her. With her affirmation, their second chance wrapped around them and showed her what she hadn't been able to see before.

_Look around, Ziva. This has been yours all along._

Her jaw slackened, body weakened, vision clouded at all that had been placed before her. Pressure built in her lungs, behind her eyes, and again came the desire to fall into him. Now, with nothing but empty space between their bodies, she succumbed willingly. Easily. Peacefully. Her forehead fell to his chest between their joined hands, every pain dissolving. The sun poured through the window, and something beautiful lodged itself in her mended ribcage.

She settled, closed her eyes, and they breathed.

**FIN.**

* * *

_A/N: I want to extend a huge thank you to those of you who have seen this through 'til the end, and especially to those of you who have left such lovely reviews. Thank you for making this such a wonderful whole fic has been so rewarding for me, both writing it and hearing the feedback. I truly appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this last part of the story :)_

_Love, Allison_


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